Free iPhone

Is Apple about to redefine computing with the much anticipated iSlate in the same way it already has for the mobile phone with the iPhone, or the humble music player with the iPod?

If the rumours, speculation, and evidence are anything to go by, the iSlate will be announced in January.

The rumour that Apple engineers are working on a new handheld touchscreen computer have been circulating for some time. Known in the industry as simply ‘the tablet’, it is hoped the device will enable video streaming, downloading and reading books (bye bye Kindle), listening to music, running Apps…the list goes on.

The rumours the iSlate will be announced in January have hit a high not seen since the release of the iPhone in 2007. Shares in Apple have soared in the last few days in anticipation of a ‘major product announcement’.

Apple has so far remained tight lipped about what the major product announcement will be, but an Apple insider let slip to The new York Times that “Steve is extremely happy about the new tablet.”

The blog MacRumours.com revealed that Apple had bought the rights to the iSlate.com domain name.

The cost of the iSlate is as much of a mystery as every other detail about the newest device from Apple. That won’t be a concern for regular readers of this blog who will all be awaiting the release date with baited breath so they can order their free iSlate and be among the very first iSlate owners.

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It is now official that there will be a Google Phone coming soon. Not just a rebranded HTC, this is the real deal; a 100% Google branded, sold and supported phone – and it’ll be called the Nexus One.

How this will affect the iPhone’s supremacy will be seen over the next 18 months or so – Google has a long way to go to match the runaway success of the iPhone. But they do have a track record of doing things well, as we all know from their success taking over the internet search sytem, web based email, and now their delve into social networking with Wave.

It is fully expected that the Google phone will incorporate all of these features at some stage, and much more

The phone will come loaded with at least a Google Navigation tool, and the new Google Googles.

How much?

The biggest question on my mind at the moment is how much the Nexus One will cost. To be successful as the newest and greatest smartphone on the market Google are going to have to do something a bit special. an they rely on some clever feature to make us buy their phone over an iPhone, or even a Blackberry with its new app store feature.

The only reason I would buy a Google Phone would be if it could match the iPhone in terms of features and applications AND be cheaper. Much in the same way as I haven’t binned Firefox for Google Chrome, I won’t be ditching my iPhone in favour of the Google phone unless it can offer me something much more financially.

Will there be a Free Google Phone plan? I hope so, and think that may be the only way for Google to make their mark on the World of smartphones in a real way. The Android is dead, but the Google phone could well be king.

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So the day has finally come – the freebiejeebies car competition draw will occur in less than an hour – at 12pm on Sunday 6th December.

I have two entries as I won 2 Golden Tickets through the weekly draws, so I at least have a slim chance of winning. Others have a much better chance at winning the car though as I know of at least one person with 7 entries.

Good luck to all – the winner be be announced later today and will take delivery of their brand new Ford Fiesta soon afterwards!

Edit (07/12/09) – Massive congratulations to the winner Ben Harris who I believe has elected to take the car rather than the £5000 cash alternative.

Also congrats to the three frebiejeebies competition runners up, who each received £100.

Winner: Ben Harris

Runners Up: Amy Firth, Jamie Barrett and Rob Kirkup

I have recently started using Google Wave – this is the newest innovation from Google and is so powerful it could even change the way we use the web. I have a number of free Google Wave invites to give away to my readers, this is strictly first come-first served, just leave a comment on this post, and I will send the invitation code to the email address you enter in the box.

If you don’t yet know what Google Wave is, join the club.  It is still only in beta so there will be a few bugs, and just like wordpress and firefox, Google have integrated an open source area into Wave so developers can create ‘wave gadgets’ to do all kinds of great things. Over time, we should see more of these gadgets being released making Google Wave even more powerful.

Mashable have produced a Google Wave Guide which looks great, but you will need to have quite a few contacts also using Wave to be able to try out most of its functionality.

I’m still learning what it can do, and more importantly, what it can do for me! I am going to try to embed a wave in my new Free Gadgets blog (a site that literally gives away any free gadget you want).

So if you want a Google Wave invitation, just let me know below.

These invitations are limited, so please only request one if you will make use of it.

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As my regular readers will be fully aware, I recently took the plunge to quit the miserable, recession ridden, grey UK climate to start a new, warmer, life down under in sunny Oz. This meant saying goodbye to family, friends, workmates, and my Sky+ subscription.

What I didn’t realise at the time was that the TV coverage of certain sporting events such as the F1 series is not shown here on free to air TV – at least – it’s not shown at a decent time. The Australian F1 commentators are absolutely terrible, there is no F1 practise, qualifying or any other ‘extras’ shown on Australian TV, and I’ll be f**!!d if I’m staying up until 3am on a Monday to watch the race. I’m a fan, but not stupid.

So, after desperately trying to find a way of watching the qualifying, and the races, I stumbled across http://www.hideipvpn.com. Hideipvpn allows you to hide your IP address (which is use to identify your PC on the internet) to make yo appear to originate from the United States or United Kingdom.

This enables you to access sites like Hulu, Pandora, ABC, NBC, BBC & ITV.

I had never used such a service before this so when I signed up I was pleased to find excellent step-by-step instructions explaining exactly what to do, and within less than 2 or 3 minutes, I was set up, and watching the Brazilian Grand Prix online!

This product is absolutely essential to everyone who wants to access sites restricted to the UK or USA. but it goes much further than that. With this tool you are able to surf the web anonymously, block your IP Address from those annoying advertisers, and increase your security when using wireless hotspots.

Here are some of the features of HideIpVPN:

FREE UK/US VPN features:

• Connection using PPTP protocol. OpenVPN is offered as premium service.
• Both US and UK servers are available for use
• High speed internet connection
• Encrypts and compresses all traffic including Email, IRC, FTP, DNS, VOIP, instant messengers.
• Bypasses your ISP’s traffic shaping.
• Hides your tracks from internet monitoring or web filtering apps like Websense, Barracuda, etc.
• No logs. We don’t keep any server logs.
• Your IP is hidden while using HideIPVPN.com.
• Works on Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac, Linux, other.
• Easy to install and use.
• Instant VPN account activation.
• Speed Test for the US server (using PPTP VPN connection)
• Speed Test for the UK server (using PPTP VPN connection)

As this is a free service, they have to limit the number of free accounts they allow each month to 100, and these are taken up within minutes. If you are a blogger like me, you can get yourself a free Premium account worth $9.99/month that gives you unlimited traffic just by providing a review of their services  – like this!

If you are concerned about the legalities of this service, you needn’t be, HideIpVPN have very strict terms of service to ensure their great product remains legal and safe to use.

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