The more times I experience the joys of GPS, the more I want my own - they're really good when travelling in the car (and for avoiding speed cameras). And now, as if by magic, several companies have released add-on units for the Pocket PC, which allows you to add GPS to your exisiting handheld, such as this one by Navman (which rather cleverly works via Bluetooth), or this one which slots into the CompactFlash slot on the back of the iPaq. Genius!

I'm writing this whilst sat on the train on my way home from an exceptionally dull work-related excursion, but my Pocket PC has more than proved its worth today. I've cumulatively spent nearly four hours on a variety of trains, but I've got six different albums stored on my Compactflash card, and with Media Player set to "shuffle" I've not heard the same track twice yet! Also, the Pocket PC has supplied me with reading material via AvantGo and I've been able to look up train times on the web. Not forgetting the fact that I can email and publish to my blog using it as well. This is a great gadget!

I've only managed to play about thirty minutes of Halo 2 so far, but I have to say that I'm impressed. I like it. The only thing I'm slightly curious about is Bungie's bizarre widescreen implementation. The game plays in widescreen quite nicely, but they haven't bothered to re-render the game's HUD graphics - so whilst all the in game action is formatted for 16:9 ratio, the radar, weapons info and targetting reticule are all bizarrely oval and squashed. Surely it wouldn't have been that big a job to redo it for those people playing in widescreen? Ah well, I'll forgive them. I can't wait to try it out on Xbox live!

Halo 2 day tomorrow! I'm very excited!

So I've had a couple of weeks of using my newly-configured computer with Firefox instead of IE, and I can happily report that all seems to be going well. Certainly a lot more smooth than it was previously anyway. Just goes to show that you shouldn't jump head-first into upgrading things straight away. There are always teething troubles. And the other lesson is that if it works okay, don't mess with it. I'm forever tinkering with things, and sometimes I just come unstuck. From now on - hopefully - I'm going to leave things alone. I've switched off automatic updates in Windows XP now, so maybe things will just tick along nicely for a while...

Now this is what I call a gadget!

I may have mentioned this already, but I'm really impressed with Firefox. It's a very, very good browser. It makes you realise how slow and clunky Internet Explorer is. And once you've tried tabbed browsing, you'll never go back to IE...

So in an attempt to rectify my slugglish internet problem, I have taken two steps. Firstly, I have rolled back my install of XP to a time prior to SP2 - good old Norton Ghost. Secondly, I have installed Mozilla Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, and veyr nice it is too. Very reminiscent of Safari on the Mac, which isn't surprising seeing as they're both based on the same underlying engine. I like it. And, for what it's worth, it seems like these two things have improved my surfing no end. So I shall say my thanks to the nice people at Firefox with a banner advert....

I can't say for certain, but I think that Service Pack 2 for XP has made my internet connection dodgy. For a couple of weeks now I've been wrestling with intermittent connection and slowdown and the like. The two things that could possibly be responsible are a) XP SP2 or b) NTL's broadband speed increase that they implemented about a month ago. But to be honest, I can't see a speed increase making my internet connection slow down! I'll have to research this SP2 problem a bit more - if I can make the damn internet work obviously!!

After giving it due consideration, I went along to the hi-fi shop in Leeds and purchased the aforementioned KEF Q4's, along with their matching centre speaker. The KEF Q35's are, for the time being, residing in the spare room until I decide what to do with them. I shall sell the old centre speaker on eBay, but I don't know whether to keep the Q35's and hook them up to my old amp and CD player up there, or stick with the little standmounters I already have and flog the Q35's. We shall see. I need to tidy that spare room up before I do anything else, and that could take a while!

Well I like the look of this! A Sony Playstation2 that's 75% of its original size, and only costs £99. Bargain! Maybe Father Christmas will bring me one...

I discovered that the Apple Store in Leeds were getting their first shipment of new G5 iMacs in today, so I went along to the shop first thing this morning to see one in the flesh. And do you know what? I was distinctly unimpressed. Compared to the G4 iMac, it's just a bit ordinary. I realise that it's damned clever to get all the computer gubbins in that tiny little enclosure, but it just hasn't quite got the same "wow!" factor that the previous two incarnations have had.

However, whilst I was in Leeds, I popped in to one of the multitudinous hi-fi shops and spotted some real things of beauty - KEF Q4 speakers. I already have some KEF speakers which I bought about seven years ago when we lived in Cambridge, but these are just beautiful by comparison. They're quite a bit smaller and slimmer than the ones I've got, and are finished in lovely real wood veneers. My current ones are rosewood, which is nice enough, but it doesn't really match our pale colour scheme in the lounge. These new ones come in a very fetching maple finish. Just the ticket. And there's a very nice matching centre speaker to go with them too. And all for half the price of a G5 iMac.

Maybe I'll get new speakers and an eMac instead....

Well what a tumultuous weekend I've had! I nearly made a costly error - let me explain...

For a while now, I've been debating getting some smaller speakers for my home cinema system in the lounge. My existing ones - which, amongst other things, comprise some rather nice KEF Q35s - are quite sizeable, and do, admittedly, take up quite a bit of space. Mrs Lacey has been "mentioning" the possibility of getting some smaller speakers in order to free up a bit of space.

So over the weekend, I went round to the new hi-fi shop that has just opened up round the corner (what a terrible place for them to put it!). I auditioned three different speaker systems costing £299, £449 and £799 respectively. Each was good for its price, but I still couldn't decide on the best course of action. I managed to convince the manager to let me borrow the £450 set overnight so that I could test them with my amp and DVD player, and see how they sounded in my lounge (which is obviously different from the shop's audition room).

So I brought them home, set them all up (including the rather fetching but very large cherry-finish subwoofer) and proceeded to give them a good hammering with a range of music and films. I had just about convinced myself to get them, when Katey asked for me to put the exisiting speakers back, "just for comparision purposes".

And guess what? There was no comparison. My KEFs blew the new speakers away. Loads more detail, tighter bass, and more refined sound all round. So, I've avoided spending £450 on something I don't need, and managed to convince the wife that although they're big, my speakers really are better. You see, size does matter.

Okay, I'm having having a huge internal conflict here. Let me set the scene...

I really want a new iMac. But my PC is perfectly functional, and it does just about everything I want it to, but it doesn't do it very elegantly. I realise that this is just me being a computer snob, but there we go. The other thing to consider is that if I get a Mac, we will have four computers in our house. Is that really necessary? Mind you, since when have I been bothered about "necessary"?

Help me out. Please?! Leave me your advice using the comments section below!

I've just taken receipt of a couple of very nice miniDV camcorders at work. They're Panasonic NVGS11Bs, they were only £300 each, and they're really rather good. Five years ago I bought some similarly-specced Panasonic camcorders for work and they were £800 and twice the size! It makes me think that maybe I need a camcorder. Maybe if I get a nice new G5 iMac, I'll get a miniDV camera to go with it...

I realised earlier (when they sent me an email about it) that the BlogSnob adverts that were on the old version of Low Fidelity got lost by the wayside in the grand redesign the other week - my mistake. You'll be pleased to know that they've now been reinstated, and can be found over there in the right hand column, about half way down. Go on, click it. In fact, whenever you come here, click it. It'll be different every time - it's a bit like weblog Russian roulette!

It's here, and it's a pretty shiny thing. Apple's new iMac G5 was announced today at the Paris Apple Expo (as I predicted it would be last Thursday). And needless to say, I want one. Now. I wonder what else I can sell on eBay?

I'm still waiting for news of the new Apple iMac G5. It sounds very intriguing. Apparently, in addition to having a G5 processor in instead of a G4, the new iMac will also be a completely new design. I'm wondering where else they can go with the iMac really. Obviously the whole point of the iMac is that it's a single self-contained unit, so I'd be surprised if they didn't stick with that idea, but other than that I haven't got a clue what they're going to do with it. The general consensus on the web is that it'll all be announced at the Paris Apple Expo but we'll just have to wait and see I suppose. After so many desirable machines in the past couple of years, I'm hopeful about this one. If it's good enough, I may even buy one...

I've just installed a photo upload program that allows you to post pictures on your blog, so I thought I'd test it out using a picture of St Ives I took a couple of weeks ago. What d'ya reckon? Incidentally, you may also notice that you can leave comments on here now, so give it a try if you like. Go on, try it. You might like it...

Apparently Mrs Lacey is very worried about my state of mind. The reason for her concern is that I've just sold my Creative Labs Zen NX on Amazon Marketplace for £150. I put it on there a few days ago in the vain hope that it would sell, and it did! They've been selling on eBay for about £100 - 120, so this was a very good price for it. So there you have it. I have very few gadgets left now, but I have a very healthy bank balance in their place. I think I'm going to save my pennies for the new Apple iMac G5, which is due to be released at the beginning of September. Maybe I'll buy an iPod Mini to go with it... :o)