Top 5

[tinyjo]

Well, I asked for a couple of these ages ago and then forgot to do them! So, we have

Top 5 Oxford pubs for swisstone

5) The Kings Arms
Not spectacular, but combines good food at sensible prices and good drink selection with a very handy location and a nice atmosphere. Tendancy to be rather full and a bit smokey - I think this could go up the list when the smoking ban comes in.

4) The Old Tom
Again, convenient location and nice food (although not much low-carb choice). Tends not to get too full and completely non-smoking. On the downside, not very well laid out for large parties - we manage, but could be better.

3) The Radcliffe Arms
Actually, the last time I went here, just before Christmas, I had to leave because of the awful music and since we used to live at this end of town it does seem to have been going a bit downhill but it still has what we loved when we were students - big cheap menu with good service and plenty of space out the back in the conservatory.

2) The Head of the River
I love the location of this and they do fantastic lasagne and a good selection of drinks (btw as a wine drinker, I base my assessment of this on how much my beer drinking friends complain about plans to go here!). Particularly in the summer, it's a great place to sit but loses out on being very crowded with tourists and other drunken summer crowds

1) The Angel & Greyhound
Bar billiards! Also, lots of other games, a nice outside seating area, nice and close to my end of town straight forward food and good drink. It's the bar billiards that wins it though :)

And Top 5 bits of shiny tech for white_hart

5) I would like to nominate an mp3 player for this slot but the synching/file storage issues I've seen with Alex's iPod mean that I wouldn't go for that and my own, while an excellent actual player was not the most beautiful of designs. I think then, on pure looks, I will go for the tiny shiny Powerbook. Googling tells me that I'm thinking of the 12inch aluminium G4 but it seems Apple don't make them any more (and the photos of the MacBooks are too arty for me to be able to tell if the finish is the same, but anyway, they're not as titchy). I remember Damian getting this delivered to OCC and falling in love with it. It was just so so gorgeous. It's the only computer I've seen which made me seriously consider getting a Mac because it was so cute.

4) Nokia Internet Tablet. I've had a play with this and it is nice. Very very crisp so you can read ok even with its very small size, builtin VOIP, very cute. Now if it just had a keyboard... (actually, Damian, what is the text entry method? I can't remember).

3) TIVO. In a completely different area, but. The original and still the best in hard disk recording. It just amazes me that there's still nothing else that really touches it. The future of TV.

2) Treo 700p. I actually haven't got one of these, having shared my PDA functions between my Q1 and my phone but I still think that these are a pretty awesome bit of kit short of having a UMPC. Alex has got the Windows version of this, but having seen that, I still prefer the Palm version.

1) The Q1 Ultra. This isn't even available yet but it will be soon and I am so going to buy it (anyone interested in a second hand Q1 should let me know :)). Seriously, though, it's basically the Q1 with the annoying bits fixed. Could not be cooler. Having said that, I actually haven't looked around much at the rest of this years crop of UMPCs so it's possible I'll change my mind, but based on the raves for this baby, it's unlikely.

Comments

[truecatachresis.livejournal.com]

What exactly does the Q1 Ultra offer that the Q1 doesn't? I had a look at it when it was announced at CeBit (thinking "Oh, that's the next version of what Jo has, I wonder if it's good enough yet?"), but wasn't terribly impressed - it doesn't look that much different to me.

I'm thinking I'll wait another year and see what UMPCs are around then - this year should see the increased coverage of the format give the industry time to really crank out a nice product.

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

Tiny integral keyboard, double the ram, twice the native screen resolution, faster boot times, dual core processor and better battery life. Basically, most of the stats for the Q1 except weight and dimensions have been doubled.

[truecatachresis.livejournal.com]

Ah, I missed the Dual Core thing, just noting that the clock speed went down, thinking that was a bit odd.

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's only come out of the rumour mill today really, in the latest EndGadget post.

My top 5 Oxford pubs would be...

[jinty]

1) The Harcourt Arms - quiet enough to hear conversation, friendly landlord without being intrusive, good beer, cheese & tomato toasties for cheap, and roaring log fires.
2) Cricketers' Arms is good too.
Joint 3rd) Angel and Greyhound, King's Arms, Oxford Blue.
Honourable mention to the Royal Oak, which has its problems but also its strengths (strengths including being such a rabbit warren, and serving good big G&Ts).

Not placed - Old Tom, Radcliffe Arms, The Star. All ok pubs but not places-of-choice.

Dishonourable mention to The Mitre.

Re: My top 5 Oxford pubs would be...

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten about the Royal Oak, actually. I preferred it before the famous refurb when it went more gastro-pub-y but it's still pretty good but it's so far out that I rarely make it there. I've never been to the Oxford Blue, I don't think - where's that? The Hardcourt would be on Alex's list too but there's no actual dinner size food there for me, so I tended not to be a fan as it's quite rare that we go to a pub without intending to eat there as well.

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

Goodness, no mention of the Turf?

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

Too crowded in the winter because it's small inside and too crowded in the summer because it's full of drunken finalists! Other than that, not bad, but I really hate crowds so that's a big downer for me.

[t--m--i.livejournal.com]

The Nokia has 3 text input methods that I have so far discovered:
1) tapping on the diddy onscreen keyboard with the stylus (or fingers)
2) tapping on the big onscreen keyboard (press the big square button on the left when the cursor is in a text input field to make this appear)
3) handwriting recognition (stylus or other pointy thing, think you'd have to have REALLY small precise fingers....) which is OK.

What we hadn't thought of beforehand is that it is, of course, a batterypowered internet radio - at last I can listen to stuff in the bathroom. (Though I suppose I could have rigged up an FM transmitter from somewhere else in the house. But I didn't.)

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

True, I hadn't though of that. You do have to have a net connection of course, but it would even work on the Oxford Tube :)

[t--m--i.livejournal.com]

Doesn't have to be a wi-fi net connection mind - can be bluetooth (if your financial structure and outlook is up to it!).
Although I think there is the usual load of apps available, we pretty much use it for net-related stuff. For writing notes (not that I do that often), diary/address/alarm stuff, routefinding and pissing about with spreadsheets (which I do do quite often, what if....), it's hard to beat my old Psion 3c!