It’s a while until my O2 broadband contract expires but, none-the-less, after all the issues I’ve had with them I’ll be keen to move on. It’s therefore worthwhile keeping an eye on the state of the market in the meantime.

As I now have both cable and FTTC available to me it would seem churlish to not make use of it. Having said that, a quick broadband speed test still shows that I’m getting around 12Mb downloads on my ADSL+ line.

So, here’s what I’ve found. All represent broadband, line rental and free calls for evening and weekends. They are all 18 month contracts too.

BT Infinity. 40Mb downloads. Total cost is £28 pm with a £25 connection fee.

Plusnet. 40Mb downloads. Total cost is £29.48 pm with a £4.99 fee for sending you your router!

Virgin Media. 30Mb downloads (the speed is due to double in my area sometime after October). Total cost is £37 pm.

Of course, it’s never that straight forward. All of these either have limitations on their service (e.g. “traffic shaping” or download limits) and/or appalling customer service.

Maybe it’s a case of “better the devil you know” – I am, at least, well versed in the ways of their customer services departments.

So how does all of this compare, price wise, to O2? It’s difficult to say as they appear reluctant to give straight pricing on their website (they give totals but include special offers, which I’m attempting to exclude from these quoted prices). It shows £16.25 pm, but this includes my £5 for having an O2 phone plus various current offers. At least you get truly unlimited downloads.

Needless to say, O2 is still a lot cheaper than the current fibre options. It’s such a shame the O2 don’t offer fibre broadband and don’t appear to making noises that they will.

I bought an iGo (ThinkOutside) Stowaway Bluetooth keyboard some years ago to go with my Nokia N95. However, since getting rid of the Nokia I’ve not had a device that would support it. However, after some tinkering I’ve managed to get my Galaxy S2 to connect to it.

Here’s how it’s done…

• Open up the Stowaway and hold down Ctrl, Fn and Fn at the same time. The LED above the letter T should start flashing
• On your Samsung ensure Bluetooth is active and within the Bluetooth settings select “Search for devices”.
• After a short while the keyboard should appear on the list – select it.
• A Bluetooth pairing request screen should appear (see image to the right). This asks you to enter a PIN – this pin is the number at the end in quotes.
• On the Stowaway keyboard hold down Fn and type the numbers in. Finish with Enter.

The keyboard is now connected and every time you open up the keyboard in future and press a key, assuming Bluetooth is enabled on the phone, they should now connect.

The only issue you’ll experience is with key mappings. Letters and numbers work, as does the Enter key. You can move around the screen using the arrow keys without a problem. Numlock doesn’t work, nor does any of the shortcut options. Here are additional keys that do work…

• Back – Fn and Tab
• Home – Fn and Arrow left
• Switch off / on – Fn and Arrow right

My final point is that although I’ve only tried this on my S2, there are probably other Android devices this works with – although Google say this will be different from phone to phone (more to do with the hardware support rather than just the OS).

Kindle Cloud Reader

Kindle Cloud Reader is a web site that allows you to read, online, your Kindle eBook collection.

Kindle Previewer

I’ve mentioned lots of ways of converting various eBooks into a Kindle format. Amazon also provide the Kindle Previewer, an online service that lets you preview how a converted eBook will look on the Kindle.

KindleFeeder

Kindlefeeder is a service for Amazon Kindle owners that lets you aggregate your favourite feeds and have them delivered to your Kindle in a convenient, easy-to-navigate format.

Read Web Pages Later

The following 3 links are for existing online services that allow you to save web pages for reading later. However, they all have specific options for sending this information onto your Kindle….

Instapaper
ReadItLater
Readability

Kindle Direct Publishing

Created your own book but not sure how to now sell it? Now, via Amazon’s Direct Publishing service, you can self-publish your books on the Amazon Kindle Store. It’s free, fast, and easy.

Books self-published through KDP can participate in the 70% royalty program and are available for purchase on Kindle devices and Kindle apps for iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, PC, Mac, Blackberry, and Android-based devices.

With KDP, you can self-publish books in English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian and specify pricing in US Dollars, Pounds Sterling, and Euros.