All posts by Ryan Cullen

PSA: Google Maps Navigation with Satellite Layer uses tons of data

Screenshot_20151021-084814This weekend we did a lot of driving around areas where we’ve never been before. I use Google Map for my navigation including the OK Google voice search from the lock screen for ease of use.
As I tend to view Google Maps with the satellite layer it comes on when using navigation.
Yesterday I got my bill from Vodafone, and whilst logged in I took a look at my current usage and it said:
Data 1.16 of 4GB used
You’ll get a new allowance on 16 Nov 2015

This meant in four days I used over a gig of data, checking my data usage within the phone it showed that 0.96GB of that was from Google Maps.
Fortunately I tend to use less than 2GB a month, so the exta gig on top is still below my allowance, but a note to self for the future, make sure tha satellite layer is turned off before navigating.

Soundpeats Qy7 Bluetooth Headphones Review

I’ve had my Soundpeats Qy7 headphones now for over 6 months and they are a great buy.
The quality of the sound is fine for my ears (I’m sure for audiophiles you’ll have some issues) and they stay in whilst at the gym or walking.
I use them most days and the battery life is around 7 hours per charge and a full charge doesn’t take too long to complete.
I went for the black and red model, however since then the range of colours has extended to include full white, full black and yellow cables, plus the original green ones.

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How to watch NOW TV in your university halls

So you’ve arrived at your uni halls and want to hook up your NOW TV box as it’s a cheap way to watch Sky TV and get the iPlayer, ITV Player, All4, Demand 5 and YouTube on your TV without an aerial.

However you’ve hit a problem, although your NOW TV box can see the hall wifi you get Error Code 014 and have nowhere to enter your username and password.

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The problem with appeal statistics

So a tweet today from the Refugee Council said:


My first thoughts were that doesn’t add up. A quarter of all decisions wrong first time?
This would mean that 90% of all decisions would have had to have gone to appeal. Surely we are a) granting more than 10% and b) appeals aren’t 100% of all refusals.

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Join NowTV and get a £10 shopping voucher – plus your chance to win more

January 2016 update: although the £10 gift card offer has since ended, it is possible to get NOW TV entertainment or movies at half price for the first three months using the links.

So I’ve been with NowTV for over a year, and regularly used them since April. For just £6.99 a month I get access to 13 pay channels including Sky Atlantic, Sky One, Sky Living, Sky Arts 1 and Fox (plus the less watched ITV Encore, Discovery, MTV, Comedy Central, Disney, Nickelodeon, NickJr and Gold) through the internet.

Not only do they provide a catchup service for most new shows, but also boxsets of some you might have missed in the past, including The Wire, The West Wing, 24 and Game of Thrones (shows come and go, and some might have every season right now).

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TalkTalk Super Router v3 (HG635) DDNS with Cloudflare

Hopefully you’ve reached this page through Google, otherwise it’s unlikely you’ll have reason to read the rest of this blog post.

I recently received a new TalkTalk Super Router v3, which is made by Huawei and has the model number HG635. I was interested in getting some kind of Dynamic DNS set up and was pleased to see that it had some settings under Internet->Internet Services.

The options available were DynDns.org, TZO and other. As DynDns had just gone down the paid router after many years of being free I was keen to see if I could do something myself with “Other”. From here were a collection of settings including Protocol set to GNUDip.http. After a while of Googling it looked possible to set up my own GNUDip running on Perl speaking to my own DNS server. Except I couldn’t be bother to install Perl and I no longer managed the DNS server but now used CloudFlare.

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