The Superb HP DM1-3100 Laptop

What a wonderful machine. For ages I've been lusting after an 11" Macbook Air but could never really justify the asking price of around £1100. Maybe the 2011 MBA refresh would make it easier to justify but then along comes the HP DM1. It's just been released in the UK, although has been available in the States for a few months.

What's good about it? Well, it's a nice looking stylish machine, not as sleek as the MBA but good nonetheless. The keyboard is superb, a full sized chicklet style with absolutely no flex - a joy to use. The screen is nice and bright offering a 1366 x 768 res. Viewing angles are quite slender but good enough for me.

Battery life is about 6 hours with web browsing and wifi on, will be less if you're doing intensive stuff but pretty good compared to other laptops.

It sports the AMD Fusion APU, a combined CPU and GPU providing more performance than Atom and NEO CPU's. I'm perfectly able to use Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop 5 which you couldn't do on a netbook. I've loaded Office 2007, viewed 720 & 1080P video and all is fine. Overall it's very responsive and allows me to do everything I want to do, but then I don't play resource intensive games.

The front facing Altec Lansing speakers are good, providing decent full bodied sound, in fact, probably the best sound I've experienced on a laptop. Connectivity is good and beats the MBA with 3 USB 2.0's, HDMI, VGA, SD Card Reader, Bluetooth, Wifi and Webcam.

It weighs in at 1.6kg which is more than you expect when you see its A4 form factor, but this gives it some substance and sense of quality. It doesn't feel plasticky at all and is all very refined. The Trackpad takes some getting used to and you might be better off using a wireless mouse, but in the scheme of things this is a minor quibble. Windows 7 Home Premium 32 is the installed OS and the machine comes with 3 GB Ram and a 320 GB 7200 HDD. Shame they didn't throw in 64 bit, coz could've expanded RAM uoto the 2 slot maximum of 8GB.

It runs cool, no more burning your lap with a laptop and the fan is quiet and although other reviews have flagged fan noise as an issue - I've not come across this.

Here are some Web reviews which give better detail:
Laptop Magazine
Engadget

The best thing about this laptop though is the price - for a little over £300 you get all of the above, fantastic value. So for someone who wants a small ultraportable, that can handle most software, can be put in a rucksack and provide plenty of storage and performance to handle photographic editing, music and films on the go, then this is it - who needs an MBA!!

Outer Hebrides Planning

In the process of planning a 2 week trip to the islands of the Outer Hebrides which has turned into an intriguing puzzle. Coming up from England do you opt to start on the Isle of Lewis and work your way down, or go to Barra and work your way up? To start at Barra you have to go from Oban, but that then means crossing over to Ullapool from Stornaway at the end. You could cut back to Skye, but then that wouldn't do justice to Skye which is worth a much longer visit and would distract from spending time on the outer islands. Throw in ferry timings and available accommodation, it all gets very complicated. Also, how much time do you spend on each island if you want to try and do all the main ones?

Poring over maps and working through the different routes, have decided to go North to South. That means taking the longer route up to Ullapool and crossing over to Stornaway and then working down through the islands, but seems to make everything a bit more manageable. Although all the locations will be superb, in my head the highlight would be the southern Island of Barra, so working North to South will bring on the best last, more psychologically appealing!

So the latest itinerary is 2 nights in Lewis, 2 nights in Harris, 1 night North Uist (east), 2 nights North Uist (west), 2 nights South Uist, and 3 nights Barra. Hopefully this will provide a great overview of what the islands have to offer. Just hope the weather holds up!

Now have nagging doubts that maybe trying to do too much and that travelling on the islands may take longer that a casual look at the map suggests - is 4 nights on Lewis / Harris enough to take in all of the fantastic coastline? Would loved to have done the trip to St Kilda, but given this is an 'all dayer', logistically there just won't be enough time by the looks of it - will just have to come back for that!

Hopefully will come back loaded with some decent photos. Would like to have taken a full-frame camera (when is that Mk3 5D due?) to get most from the 17-40 lens, but that's not going to happen, so will have to stick with my old trusted Canon 30D for now. Have just received a variable 2-8x ND filter, cheap and cheerful but will save a load of time when faffing about with long exposures.

If anybody gets to read this, would really appreciate advice on the best books / guides to the islands. Already have Martin Coventry's Hebridean Island Hopping, but also interested in any books with walks (not too strenuous ones!) in the Islands.

Virginmedia IMAP settings - Outlook 2007

When sharing your virginmedia email account across multiple devices you need to use an IMAP service instead of 'Pop'. This means that if you download and view an email on one device, you'll still be able to download and view the same email on another.
Virginmedia IMAP settings depend on the domain name: For reference

• blueyonder = imap4.blueyonder.co.uk
• ntlworld = imap.ntlworld.com
• Vigin.net = imap4.virgin.net 
• Virginmedia= imap.virginmedia.com

The following is for MS Outlook 2007 (not Express):
Go to Tools > Account Settings
In the Dialog Box click 'New'
Select 'Microsoft Exchange, Pop 3, Imap' > Next
On Auto Account Setup page, tick the 'Manually configure server.....' box > Next
On Choose email service page, Select Internet Mail option > Next
On Internet Email Settings Page:
Your Name: Joe Bloggs
Email Address: joe.bloggs@blueyonder.co.uk (or ntlworld.com, virginmedia.com etc)
Account Type - select 'imap'
Incoming mail server  - select one of the imap configs at top of page depending on the domain name used
Outgoing mail server - smtp.blueyonder.co.uk (or virgin.net etc)
User name: joe.bloggs@blueyonder.co.uk (i.e. your email address)
Password: enter your password (tick remember)
Do not tick 'Require logon using Secure Password Authentication'


Click 'More Settings' button - a tabbed Dialog Box will open
On General Tab, type the name you want displayed for this account (i.e. Joe's Blueyonder)
On Folders, select 'Choose an Existing folder or create a new..........', select one of the folders displayed in the tree structure (probably best to select 'Sent')
Outgoing Server tab, tick 'My Outgoing server requires authentication', then select 'Use same settings as incoming mail server'
On Connection Tab, select 'Connect using my Local Area Network (Lan)
On Advanced Tab, 

• select SSL from the dropdown under Incomming server (Use the following type of encrypted connection) - the port number should show 993
• select SSL from the dropdown under Outgoing server (Use the following type of encrypted connection) - the port number should show 465

Click OK on the dialog box
Click 'Test Account Settings'
When completed and all OK, click Next and then Finish.


In your Outlook software, you'll see in addition to your Inbox, a folder containing [Google Mail] with folders underneath. In here will be 'All' your emails, even ones you've previously deleted in  Outlook. You can clear out those you no longer need by going to your virgin webmail and managing. Virgin mail uses a Googlemail email service hence the connection with Google - this is not the same as gmail.