Rii Mini Wireless Keyboard and Mouse Review

Wow!  I've only had this device for an hour or so now and it's absolutely brilliant.  As you'll have read from my previous posts, I am the proud owner of a Raspberry Pi that I am using as a Media Centre.  Up until today I was using a full-size USB keyboard to navigate the software as I couldn't find the Remote Control that came with my legacy Dell XPS 420 desktop that I have.

As I have not managed to locate where my remote control is (I have the USB receiver but it's not much use on its own) I decided to buy a compact keyboard and mouse and after several hours of looking at the different options I found the RiiTek RT-MWK01 and promptly ordered it from Amazon as the price was right at just £14.20 compared to over £20 for a lot of the other ones I could see.

It's not the latest model from RiiTek but it certainly does the job and the bonus is that not only is it the size of a typical remote control, it works really, really well and has a backlit keyboard so if you're watching TV with just a table lamp on you wont struggle to see what you're doing with it.

The trackpad is small (and not as useable as one you'd find on a laptop) but is adequate enough for using to operate a media centre on a computer.

Duronic Mini HDMI Switcher

The Duronic HDMI Selector arrived this morning so time to give it a try...

According to the box, the HDMI switch auto switches up to 3 HDMI devices but just in case you have 2 or more HDMI devices on at the same time it comes with a handy remote control that you can use to manually select the HDMI device you want to view.  Failing that, there is a Select button on the HDMI Switch itself that cycles through the 3 different connections.

It supports full 1080p my TV is only 720p so I wont see the benefit of that.  There is a place to plug in a 5V power supply but it doesn't come with one as it's not required for it to function.

There isn't a built-in infrared port, instead you have to plug the enclosed infrared lead in to a port on the side of the HDMI switch.  This means that you can hide the HDMI Switch and the ugly looking wires behind your TV set and just have the infrared receiver on show which makes the place look a lot tidier.

I purchased this switch from Amazon and paid £9.99 + £3.73 delivery for it which is right within my budget (I didn't want to spend any more than £15).  Some people on Amazon were selling this for £19.99 and this is a Sale price as it once was £29.99!  It's a nice device but certainly not worth £19.99 let alone £29.99 - especially when you can get a gold plated version (without a remote control) for £8.99 with free delivery.

At £19.99 - £29.99 I would only give it 2-3 stars but as I only paid £13.72 for it I will give it 4 stars.

Raspberry Pi As A Media Centre Review

It might not be Christmas Day yet but I already have a parcel to unwrap thanks to CPC and the super fast delivery by Royal Mail!

My Raspberry Pi that I ordered from CPC on Sunday has arrived so I now need to get to grips with it so I can set it up to be a Media Centre to play all my media files on my TV.

The first thing I did was to download NOOBS (New Out Of Box Software) which has the RaspBMC option in it which is the software I am using as my Media Centre - it's basically an open source application called XBMC that has been configured to work on the Raspberry Pi.

After downloading the NOOBS file I followed the installation instructions and downloaded, installed and run the SD Formatter utility and formatted the SD Card I ordered using the FAT system.

I then extracted the NOOBS file I had downloaded on to the root of the SD Card and then popped it in to my Raspberry Pi and then turned it on by connecting it to the USB slot of my HP MediaSmart Server.

Winmau Lakeside World Championship Edition Darts Set Review

I've always wanted to learn to play Darts but I've never managed to get around to it.  Today I had an urge to give it a try so I had a quick look online to see what shops on the 'High Street' sold them so I could pick one up today (before I changed my mind) after searching around I found that Argos was pretty much the best place to shop.

After looking at all the options I narrowed it down to either the Winmau Blade 4 or the Unicorn Eclipse dart boards, but which one is best?  What a minefield that is!  After reading reviews on the internet I found that for every person saying the Blade 4 is the best there was another saying the Eclipse was the best - so at least I had picked the two most popular ones at least.

I decided to look at the different accessories that you can get with them as I wanted to hang it on the wall and as a beginner I'm more than likely to miss at some point so I need some sort of surround etc. to minimise damage to my wallpaper.  After looking at all the different options I decided that the Winmau Lakeside Word Championship Edition Darts Set was the right one for me as it includes the Winmau Blade 4 dartboard, two sets of darts and a deluxe cabinet to hang it on the wall with.

After reserving it online I popped down to my local Argos store and purchased the set and brought it home where I spent the next 20 minutes hanging drilling holes and hanging it on the wall.

I have to say though, first impressions are that the finish of both the dartboard and the so called 'luxury cabinet' are pretty poor.

Kettering Asda Breakfast Review

I don't often go out for a cooked breakfast but today I fancied a treat and as I needed some shopping from Asda I decided to give one of their cooked breakfasts a go.

Now I have to be honest, they've not been particularly brilliant in the past, in fact it's been downhill at this site since they took over from the Co-Op who did fantastic cooked breakfasts!

On ordering my breakfast I was asked if I wanted one of the fried eggs (that had clearly been cooked a long, long time ago and had gone all hard) or a fresh one.  Obviously I opted for a fresh one.  After taking my money, the young whipper-snapper on the till started ranting out-loud to her colleague how much she hated eggs, both eating and cooking them.  Nice thing to say in front of customers when it's your job to cook them.

I was told to take a seat and she'd bring my breakfast over when the egg had been cooked and within a matter of minutes my luke-warm breakfast was brought over to me:

The egg was perfect, hot and runny just how I like it.  However as I started to tuck in I soon found that the rest of the breakfast was luke-warm at best and when I got to the sausages, well I was in complete and utter disbelief:

As you can see there was a thick-black burnt crust to them.  Surely the young girls who had cooked them had noticed this??  They clearly didnt have the gumption to realise they should not be serving substandard food items and should have binned them and started again, but no they served them to their customers.

After I scrapped off the barely edible part of the sausages I was left with two bits of charcoal that would be more at home in an artists studio than on a plate of food.

I dunked the now cold bacon in my actually yummy freshly cooked fried egg and left the rest.

Like I said before, Asda cooked breakfasts here have never been particularly nice, but they've always (just) been edible but this experience has put me off for life.

A real shame as everything else in this store is brilliant.

The Corby Cube

This evening I had tickets to see a show at the Corby Cube which is the first time I have been to Corby's new Theatre.

First impressions, I'm sad to say, were not very good as there is no car parking at the Corby Cube.  Their website has some cleverly worded directions for parking which basically say you can park in the car park next door.

The only problem with this is that it's the swimming pools car park.  And you'll never guess who parks in it?  Yes, that's right, the users of the swimming pool so there was no room for myself and many, many other cars that were aimlessly driving around in circles wondering where they could park.

The best known fact about the Corby Cube is that is has been a cock-up from start to finish.  It was supposed to cost around £21million instead it cost nearer £49million - more than double the initial cost!  The bungling councilors didn't stop there though, they build the Corby Cube to a dangerous design that was revealed in a leaked report to the BBC.

I don't know what they spent the overspend on, it certainly wasn't on a car park.

I finally found a place to park in the car park where all the shops are.  After a short walk I arrived at the cub where I was greeted with a gigantic pavement area that serves no point what-so-ever other than to annoy people who couldn't park in the swimming pools car park as this could have quite easily been used as a car park.

There wasn't a clear entrance to the theater as all you can see is the Library and after walking all the way around the Corby Cube we realised that that was the only entrance so ventured in.  We soon could see some smartly dressed people who looked like they worked in the Theater part of the Cube so we walked towards them and as we did so they greeted us with a smile and a warm welcome and after a quick look at our tickets they helpfully pointed us in the right direction.

After walking down several flights of stairs we ended up in the bar area where we decided to have a drink whilst we waited for the show to begin.  Now I don't know what is in the local water supply but whatever it is, it makes the Diet Pepsi taste like flat dish water so if you want a non-alcoholic fizzy drink then I'd steer clear of anything on tap as it's disgusting - luckily they sell bottle soft-drinks too and that's what we had during the interval of the show.

We were very grateful for the interval as watching a show at the Corby Cube is a painful experience as the seats are the thinnest, most flimsy and uncomfortable seats I have ever had the misfortune to sit in.  Again, I can't for the life of me see where the £49million was spent, not only was it not on the non-existent car park, but they certainly didn't spend very much on the cheap and nasty seats that wobbled all over the place when anyone in the building walked around.

All-in-all I have to say that I sadly would not recommend the Corby Cube to anyone.  Even the McKinlay Theater (which has now been demolished) on the former Tresham Institute site on St Marys Road in Kettering was better than the Corby Cube and Ken Dodd once described that as nothing more than a disused aircraft hanger!

If you're looking for a night out in Corby, then either drive, catch a bus or hail a taxi and go to the Castle in Wellingborough as it has ample car park spacing and the seats are very, very comfortable.

I've given The Corby Cube 1 star out of 5 simply because I don't have an image with no stars in it as up until now I didn't think I would need one.  :(

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Django Unchained Film Review

It's a couple of years before the start of the American Civil War and Dr King Schultz who is a German immigrant dentist is searching for a slave by the name of Django.

When he locates Django he finds that he has recently been purchased by a chain gang so he has to purchase him and gain a bill of sale as proof of ownership.

Why is he searching for a slave?  Well, Dr Schultz is also a Bounty Hunter but there isn't a bounty on Djangos head, instead he needs Djangos help to identify some brothers who do have a bounty on them so he gives Django his freedom and asks him for his help and this is how the story of Django Unchained begins.

As you can probably guess Django agrees to help Schultz and they end up in a partnership and they soon find the brothers that Schultz is looking for, but this is only the beginning of their partnership...

As with Quentin Tarantino's other films, the soundtrack throughout the film is fantastic and plays an important part of the story telling and as per usual there is a different 'special effect' that is used throughout the film that is both gory and funny at the same time.

It's quite a dark film and is Tarantino's first attempt at a Western and I have to say it is one of (if not the most) fantastic film I have ever seen.  Some of the subject matter in the film can be hard to stomach and I'm not talking about the bloodshed but the graphic depiction of how slaves were treated as nothing more than property for their 'owners' to do with as they please.  From whipping their backs to dogs ripping them apart limb-from-limb.  Although you don't always see the full gory details on screen, you hear what is happening and your imagination does the rest.

There is the typical Tarantino humour throughout the film and you find yourself laughing at subject matters that you shouldn't/wouldn't normally be laughing at.  One particular example is there is a moment where what can only be described as the beginning of the KKK where they are discussing the merits of their new headgear which consists of a poorly designed white hood with eye-holes they all can't see out of properly.  I can remember hearing the whole cinema erupting with laughter, followed by an uneasy silence.

Although you could wait for it to be released on DVD and Blu-Ray I would strongly recommend you watch this amazing film at the Cinema as the experience you'll get from the atmosphere is simply fantastic.

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