joshwaller.co.uk

Wow, my last pair of shoes from Clarks, lasted nearly 3 years ! They were £60. Since then this range of shoes seem to have gone up in price as they're now £60 - £75 (or slightly less when you factor in the 15% VAT we're paying - ie they're still priced up at £75 in the store, but are £73 when you come to buy them.) Here's hoping these new "Clarks Rustle GTX" black leather, goretex, active air, "extreme comform technology" shoes last as long as the last pair! With the last pair it was the sole that wore out the quickest, which meant they were no longer waterproof. The new ones are very snug - they grip your feet even on the heel - and the inner is quite fuzzy meaning your feet shouldn't slip when in them. They also seemed to be the most comfortable out of the range with the most bounce. Here's the old ones with the worn through soles. And while we're on the subject of shoes, I may as well mention some Sketchers trainers (pictured below) I ...

BitDefender Internet Security 2009 (£25 from Amazon UK) goes a little bit further than most anti-virus software, however it also adds parental control so that you can make sure your children aren't visiting dodgy websites. When installing it notified me that a newer version was available and asked me if I wanted to download it - this extends the install time - however you may as well have the latest version if you're in no rush. Once downloaded, the install took roughly 4 minutes (excluding download time) and required a restart after installing. I installed it on a Vista SP1 laptop. Once installed the program takes over the built in Windows Firewall and Windows Defender - the main features are anti virus, anti spyware, anti phishing (works with Firefox as well), IM encryption, Family network protection, Gamer mode, Laptop mode, antispam, firewall, parental control, and file vault. Total Security 2009 adds Tune-up and Backup. (If you want backup as standard then I'd recomme...

£31 from Amazon UK - this provides Nero 9 + Nero BackItUp 4 plus a trial of Nero Home 4. It comes in a big box containing the usual size DVD case - so isn't especially environmentally friendly when it comes to the packaging. Installation attempt 1 failed at 2% with Nero installer crashing, and a reboot was required. (Although it did manage to install a Lightscribe control panel that now lives in the taskbar). Installation attempt 2 was successful using the typical installation settings (although it appears you need to perform a custom install to get all the Movie templates - which are useful if you use Nero Vision). This seemed a little slow - taking around 20 minutes on my PC which has 2 500GB hard drives, a Quad Core processor, and 4GB of ram, so I dread to think how slow it would be on older machines! Installation did not require a restart of the PC at the end of installation, which was an unexpected bonus. The installation put two icons on the desktop - one of them a Lightscri...