I was shocked to learn this morning that Today (5 March 2011) marks the 30th anniversary of my first ever computer the humble Sinclair ZX81. Although it wasn’t really my computer as it was bought for my older sister, it did serve as my introduction to computing and at the age of six my introduction to basic programming. It will always hold a special place in my heart.

Here’s a recently made demo for ZX81 (with 16kb or more RAM) to show you what the ZX81 just can do.

Code and graphics by Andreas “Shadow” Gustafsson. Graphics by Håkon “Archmage” Repstad. Binaries can be downloaded from http://ag1976.com

I have Diaspora invites, who wants one?

Usual rules apply; Leave a comment. Friends and sexy ladies first.

When looking through my followers list on Twitter, I began to wonder about is the correct social etiquette for unfollowing people. So I asked the following question on twitter.

I got the following responses;

What are your thoughts?

There was a period of time where I would sign up to all the social media websites just to check them out, but nowadays I don’t seem to have time to be one of these cool early adopter types any more. That being said I’ve been playing a couple of  sites, most people used these months ago. Here is what I thought.

Formspring is a questions and answers website. You set up a profile page, from which anyone can ask you questions either public or anonymously.  The questions and their given answers are then published on the your profile page or you can however choose to disallow anonymous questions, and have the ability to block selected people from asking further questions, even if the asker has remained anonymous.

That’s pretty much all there is to it. It seems to be mostly used for by people sending abuse anonymously (rather than actual questions) or people desperately wanting other people to ask them questions.

Foursquare on the other hand is great fun. It is a location-based social networking website and mobile phone application, but a better way would be to describe it as a game. Users “check-in” at venues using  GPS unabled mobile phone (using a device-specific application). They are then awarded points and sometimes “badges. If a user has checked-in to a venue on more days than anyone else in the past 60 day they will be crowned “Mayor” of that venue, until someone else earns the title by checking in more times than the previous mayor. You can add “Tips” to venues that other users can read, which serve as suggestions for great things to do, see or eat at the location.

What I think the genius part of this is, it behaves like an XBox or Playstation game by giving you achievements for doing tasks and unlocking things, but instead of being stuck in the house playing a console game, your are outside enjoying the real world. It certainly tricked me into going outside.

Obviously an application like this could have some Privacy Concerns, but you can set your privacy settings however you want and they default to a setting the lets no one other the ‘friends’ can view your location or where you have been.

It seems like I’ve not had a new phone in ages. I’m not sure how long I have my K810 but I know it is getting on a bit as it’s got a fair bit of ware and tear, and the battery life is now very low. I’ve also got through about half a dozen hands free kits while listening to music and podcasts using it, the Sony Erickson hands free kits seem to have a reoccurring problem with one of the speakers failing. Most importantly my current SIM in my phone doesn’t give me access to the internet which is obviously most unacceptable. So when I saw 3′s offer of the Nokia E71 with 200 minutes, 1GB Internet, and 4096 text messages a month for a meagre 20 quid last weekend, I snapped it up.

I’m so happy I did, as the phone is great. Let me tell you why, but remember I haven’t had new a top spec phone in years so some of my amazement at the phones features may make me look very dated.

First of all, is the Internet, as well as having 3G/3.5G Internet it has the ability to connect to my home wireless network, which means I’m always connected to the Internet while I’m at home. This combined with the Twitter, Instant Messenger and Facebook applications, means I’m can connected all of the time, even when I’m in bed or in the bath  (places that I would take the laptop).

Another great feature is the Qwerty keyboard. It’s great to have a proper keyboard on the phone, so I quickly type text messages or something on the internet without having to user predictive text. A phone with a Qwerty keyboard with lots of free text messages and Ping.fm’s update via text means I can update my status on my social networks as once, and very regular.

The phone also has a good Music Player which also has support for playing and downloading podcasts making it a great portable MP3 Player. Another useful music application is the Internet Radio, So now I can listen to SlayRadio, Radio6581 (I haven’t get SceneSat working as yet) and a number of other Internet radio stations live while on the go.

The final great feature I’ll mention is the built in GPS (Global Positioning System). I’ve downloaded Google Maps to use with it, so I’ve not got an excuse to ever get lost again.

The only problem I’ve had with the phone is Nokia’s typically horrible user interface (I’ve been spoilt by years of using Sony Ericsson great User Interfaces)