Just wanted to update you on a new website is designed. It’s a personal site built to add some knowledge about a certain breed of cat… the Turkish Van cat. While this website focus’s around a personal preference to this breed having lived with one, two on their way in December, the main purpose is to show the interesting breed’s characteristics and history.

Website was built in WordPress from scratch (no pun intended) with a custom theme, Design, HTML and CSS.

Check out the website. Leave a comment in one of the posts. More on this site as it develops.

http://vancatblog.com 

Yep here goes another rambling review of a Pandora you’re all dying to hear about. Sorry for the guys that are still waiting for your Pandora but these kinds of reviews help you make you mind up if you’re man enough to stay on the boat and wait or jump overboard and cancel like the slimy scurvy dogs those guys are.

So is it worth the wait? Or have you spent the last 2 (maybe more) fending off vapourware twats for no reason?

Hardware

Packaging

As like the few that have reported back and those who have experience of collecting the Pandora from the deliveryman, the seer joy of rushing to the kitchen to open the packaging only to find a massive dent in the box…

“oh crap”

I thought UPS/Royal mail had dragged the box behind the van.

All was fine, thanks to the bubble wrapped Pandora, though the user guide must’ve taken the impact with a lovely crease mark down the middle.

Its in the bin now (actually now in the recycling depot as its over 2 weeks ago)

User guide

To be honest I have done what every red blooded male does with every instruction manual and put it on the old reading pile. However the initial boot up time let me skim over the details. Nothing really I really didn’t already know about the Pandora but might be useful for new Pandora owners. I certainly already know not to use a battery acid leaking Pandora… however it has been written in a very human (most of it) and simple way.

Battery case

As my Pandora came with the battery already inserted it puzzled me why this was needed, probably the biggest waste of plastic with the included boxed items. Its also a bugger to open.

Battery

The battery is fine and performs as stated, though obviously overclocking the CPU for faster performance reduces stated battery times. I initially had issues with the battery not sitting 100% in the right place making the case point in an angle but it was just the battery sticker that was slightly misaligned. A quick fiddle smoothing the sticker sorted this problem.

Wall charger

I can see why they did what they did with the wall chargers, but I found it really disconcerting that the Pandora’s wall charger had to come with a UK adapter for the US power socket used. After figuring out which way round it went in the actual adapter I was set to power the Pandora on, yet it still hangs out my wall socket looking like a fire hazard lets hope that’s never the case.

Hopefully a specific UK style plug can be provided later with production of the second batch.

The Pandora

Now on to the Pandora itself.

The case of the Pandora hits you immediately its tiny! Just smaller than a Nintendo DS XL slightly weightier but very solidly built. I’ve seen photos of other guys cases but this one must be one of the better cases out there. No plastic blemishes no real problems with the case at all.

Saying that there were a few points with my Pandora I found out later, as said earlier the battery caused the battery cover to be raised… now sorted.

An odd sort of warp on the left side of the case where the screen meets the keyboard.

Lastly looking at the screen later I found there was a space at the bottom of where the screen meets the screen surrounding on the case, obviously its just a missing section of hot glue that wasn’t used but this causes a bit of a gap. These problems don’t spoil the Pandora at all both the touch screen works brilliantly and the case closes normally.

Its remarkable how the Open Pandora team have really gotten the best out of the Chinese company. We’ve waited a long time for these cases, they were well worth the wait. However there’s plenty of room for improvement with this. But for a first batcher this is absolutely the best result the team could get and really it shows, there’s a lot of love for the small size and great quality.

The Screen

Speaking to Craigix earlier before the Pandora’s release he commented on how the screen was one of the classiest components in whole Pandora. I 100% agree with him. Its pixel perfect for a LCD screen. Colours and contrast are sharp and vibrant. Its very hard to fault it indoors. Outdoors is another matter. However this has always been an issue with LCD screens were really only just seeing higher end companies fix this issue with such things as Super AMOLED.

Moving onto the touch screen, I found it useable but very cumbersome double clicking was a nightmare but with some software tweaks in the mouse settings I was fine in XFCE otherwise the touch screen performs well with either stylus or chubby finger. Speaking of which I didn’t get on with the built in stylus every time I used it, it felt like I was dragging a knife down a kids face. I quickly swapped to a spare DS stylus. Much happier now.

Controls

Controls are what make this thing unique, not only a full keyboard but great D-pad shoulder buttons and amazingly accurate dual analogue sticks.

The d-pad and button configuration works very well, right amount of spring to the controls to help pull off the moves I never accomplish but it’s a feature I’m glad is there, even if I suck at most games.

Shoulder buttons have no real sense of movement minus a clicking noise when you hit the sweet-spot, I’m hoping for a better mod than cramming half a used tampon or bog roll into my Pandora to rectify this uneasiness I currently have with them. I need to test them further with games that need to use them in rapid succession, various N64 titles proved very playable though.

The analogue sticks first become useful after first boot, taking the form of the mouse controls, after trail and error I quickly managed to get my heard around the left click and right clicking methods. But boy this thing is precise, love the way the cursor glides around the screen, in games it doesn’t shine so well at the time of writing but this can be solved by adjusting in-emulator. This is definitely one of the killer features of the Pandora to keep and eye on.

Keyboard

After hearing bitching from the forums about the keyboard layout I really dreaded using this but once again I was joyfully surprised with the results. Yep the space is in a weird position but get your head around that and your set. The first night I was chatting via pidgin at my usual rate, it was amazing.

Using this keyboard is a pain in laptop mode really. This keyboard was made for your thumbs it just does it flawlessly.

Sound

I found most the emulators has odd crackles but music from Mplayer played fine. I’m not a sound expert and wont pretend to be. It does its job. Software will catch up soon enough.

Misc features

Power switch

Bit of a bugger to use without nails but turns the device on pretty easily but turning the device off after breaking something normally ends up with removing the battery rather than waiting for something to happen with the switch.

Volume wheel

Worked fine no issues with this

Headphone jack

Same again works fine, I noticed in the hacker manual it supports 4 pin. So a hands free microphone could be used.

USB socket

Haven’t needed to use this yet, hoping webcams and USB gadgets will be supported soon.

SD Cards

I used a single 16gb Kingston class 4 SD card and had no issues loading or removing items software issue I got annoyed at was the process in getting to the drive… via media then remembering which mmc34234234ewrwr number it was. A little tedious but I hope for a fix for this soon.

At this time I’m feeling the second SD card slot might be overkill, however if more emulators and games come out a second 16gb card may be joining the fun.

Software

This is where it will all eventually happen. A lot of homebrew is bubbling beneath the surface and what I’ve seen already from what the Pandora can do, the finalised products will be amazing down the line.

As with all open source and new platforms time is needed before everything is at a good level. This is not a big name company, commercial games wont happen straight away. But they will happen someday and they will rock your socks off.

XFCE Linux operating system

Admittedly I am really a Linux newbie, I’ve grown up with windows and been perfectly happy with it. I’ve dabbled with Ubuntu several times but nothing serious due to software restraints.

XFCE works perfectly well, all be it very tiny on first start up. I know its making the most of the screen size but I quickly changed the UI to suit my needs and aid with day to day use of my Pandora. Gladly there are tonnes of appearance options to choose from.

The built in browser at the time of writing sucked, luckily more came out very soon after now I straddle between Fennic and Chrome both are brilliantly different browsers.

Pidgin works great and does everything you will want to do from your Pandora IM wise.

The Pandora’s SD card explorer is great. Showing and refreshing everything in your SD card and whacking it on your desktop or start menu its truly astounding and a brilliant idea for the problem of removable storage.

Mini Menu

The first publically released mini menu works great and does everything you need in a finger friendly environment. If it wasn’t for the lure of the full desktop, I would be perfectly happy using this all day.

Conclusion

A biased opinion? Maybe. But it pushes portable gaming forward, without sacrificing necessary controls, power, connectivity and openness.

No one has done anything like this. It truly is a masterful gaming platform.

I really hope developers give it a chance to push this device into its much deserved limelight.

Minor case problems are overshadowed when you’ve seen this device grow. The development process has been tough on everyone, even those waiting and still waiting. But its very much worth every penny and every two month promise we’ve had.

Congratulations to everyone involved with the Pandora project, not naming any names as I’m guaranteed to miss people out. You know who you are and can reap the benefits of this grand accomplishment.

Well done.

came up with a semi-funny name for the project PandaPause (PandPaws)… anyway check out the design

I’m Not a developer so would love someone to code or organise a team to build this.
Please feel free to give me a shout if your interested

Concept of the main music playing interface (fullscreen)

Concept of the library found via the eject button on the player interface
the three shuffle buttons change the library window occording to the selection
album shuffle will require just an artist selection
shuffle all will bounce you back to the player shuffling all songs in the music directory
normal play will allow you to play specific tracks, artists or albums

would be awesome to get some feedback and maybe a hope at helping someone develop this into a real app!
i used some images from google image namely the smoke background effect and the shuffle icon, but i have a friend who can get take a great smoke effect photo and i will eventually design my own arrow iconRight theres lots of things going on lately but just been playing around with a mockup of what i would love to see from a pandora specific mp3 player
this idea came up because im driving alot and would love to ditch my busted ipod for the pandora… however the current limitation of the music players out there is that the buttons are tiny and will likely involve a traffic offence when fiddling with them.
the requirement to just set up quickly the tracks i want to hear (while parked) then be able to skip and pause songs at a quick tap of the screen (no styus)

came up with a semi-funny name for the project PandaPause (PandPaws)… anyway check out the design

I’m Not a developer so would love someone to code or organise a team to build this.
Please feel free to give me a shout if your interested

Concept of the main music playing interface (fullscreen)

Concept of the library found via the eject button on the player interface
the three shuffle buttons change the library window occording to the selection
album shuffle will require just an artist selection
shuffle all will bounce you back to the player shuffling all songs in the music directory
normal play will allow you to play specific tracks, artists or albums

would be awesome to get some feedback and maybe a hope at helping someone develop this into a real app!
i used some images from google image namely the smoke background effect and the shuffle icon, but i have a friend who can get take a great smoke effect photo and i will eventually design my own arrow icon

more info here http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?/topic/53664-music-player-concept/

I’ve been working on an appstore userinterface design for the Open Pandora development team.
basically its a download store you should be able to access via the portable device and get the latest files, comment and rate on applications.

All is going well heres a quick look at the design; bear in mind that this is for a portable device limited in its performance so a kitted out graphical interface wouldve hapered download speeds and usability.

here’s a demo site just to show you it semi-working

http://www.trevsweb.com/pandainterface/demo3/

Completed work last week on the cover and helped bills tiresome efforts to make this book… seriously sick of his family history now, so much so I don’t need to read what’s in the book as I know most of the peoples stories. Heck I even went to Yorkshire on some sort of family history pilgrimage… *sigh* all that effort just to have a paragraph in a book… I should’ve changed the front cover to a picture of my face. good stuff.

Check out the book if you want to read up on Bills zany suicidal family some of the stories are quite interesting but I’ve been told them so many times at tedium i never want to hear about Capt Potter the Pirate ever again!

Also check out the newman family history, someone has to http://www.newmanfamilyhistory.com

It has always humoured me that these cold calling companies still bother me by ringing me up butchering my last name or asking for a company director of Trevsweb.com to sell me something like platinum cards or personalised company bars of soap. no your speaking to the director and no I’m not interested / can’t afford it. Although a room filled with Trevsweb pens and promotional googly eyed bugs does sound tempting. However I shall end up giving them all names and not allowing anyone to have them… GET OFF JEFF he’s my favourite!

Anyway I’ve decided to buckle under pressure and become another faceless charade of pretending I have a vast office block for my services with ChromexStudios.com yep that’s the name I’ve chosen. It originates from my different coloured eyes (Hetrochromia) which I share with David Bowie apparently.  Things are going nicely the domain is there at least and I should have a shell of a design available soon, although I’m still on the fence whether or not to get business cards printed… I feel the 400 or so cards for Trevsweb still need to go before making/wasting more.

I shall stay here with the Trevsweb persona but on much more of a personal CV/jokey website as its now accustomed to.

More updates soon when a site goes live but for now think weird eyes lol

Trevor

Anyway Bill wanted a website doing earlier this month so we decided to follow suit of K&N and get blogging… sure its just copying the content off the main site but anyway… the design is now online with a PHPBB3 powered forums, currently the site and blog are live (tho the blog is not actively linked though I think I might) only the photo gallery and forum skin to do and we should be able to go content crazy… not that we haven’t already… I counted 14 additional pages lol. Go check the site out I love the vivid look and the lil tree. http://www.newmanfamilyhistory.com

Check out Raw Filth from my 2009 portfolio on http://www.trevsweb.com

Digging in the garden trying to remove crappy bamboo (which I succeeded in boo-ya) I came across many a worm this I saved I didn’t risk cutting them in half as the saying still to this day has me worried its going to rain when you cut a worm in half… but people believe in sillier things like god for a quick example. hmm maybe god likes worms, who knows. i don’t and you probably don’t care. Oh yea the centipedes they were everywhere thanks to a membrane under the soil made a nice little home for them, but I couldn’t put my hands in the soil after I knew one was there so I had to dig it out urrrgh creepy.

After seeing some videos on youtube you will be.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CL2hetqpfg
(don’t watch if you like little “miceies” poor thing)
Yea OK the ones in the garden were not that big or evil but they got a poking evil buggers really

God I’m a wuss.

Big up to wood lice they’re the insect version of bunnies’ yay