John Large .co.uk

iOS 8.1.1 update for iPad 2

20th November 201421st November 2014 John Large Leave a comment

Just a quick post regarding memory issues and poor performance on iOS 8 when used on an older A5 chipset iPad 2. I upgraded to iOS 8.1.1 tonight and everything seems much improved. It’s nowhere near as quick as iOS 7.1.2 was, but it is snappier and less buggy. Also seems to have fixed the copy and paste issue I hacked a workaround for last week.

Safari loads faster and multi tasking is improved noticeably. Still having issues with gsm not working so I’m limited to wifi only but I’m glad to have a usable iPad 2 again. Read More....

Tech obsolescence in 2014

18th November 201421st November 2014 John Large Leave a comment

I’m a big gadget lover but I need to balance my love of tech with my environmental conscience. I’ve got a massive issue with replacing items which are still perfectly usable items. It seems so wasteful to replace a phone or a tablet simply because a newer version has been released. The new models may have a slightly better spec but often they carry a huge price tag. To me, the gain is minimal but the outlay is maximum.

This standpoint is reflected in my current lineup of tech. My one & only phone is an iPhone 4. Not a 4S, a humble 4. It’s jailbroken & locked down to ios 7 as apple no longer allow it to be upgraded. With the jailbreak tweaks its perfectly fine speed wise, I actually prefer the smaller form factor and the battery life hasn’t really degraded from the day I bought it. Read More....

iOS 8.1 copy and paste not working fixed

14th November 201414th November 2014 John Large 2 Comments

Like many people I’ve been struggling with the copy and paste bug in iOS 8.1. It’s so frustrating not being able to consistently copy and paste between apps. Often when pasting it would paste old content and would require many attempts to copy and paste successfully. Without a jailbreak available there was very little that could be done to rectify the issue.

I tried a factory reset and setting up as a completely new iPad. No joy. When you are an iOS family like ours, with many devices failing to work its a most frustrating issue to have. Then thankfully the pangu jailbreak for iOS 8 was released. I instantly jail broke and reinstated all my tweaks, making iOS generally more useable on my iPad 2. Then came the master stroke. I remember using a cydia tweak known as single use keyboard by Yanik Magnan. This tweak essentially wipes the clipboard once you have pasted your text. This is essentially meant for privacy, but I don’t tend to paste more than once. Because it wipes the clipboard once you have pasted, the next time you come to copy and paste the clipboard is empty and cannot replicate old data. This works very well for me and I hope it helps you. Read More....

Nest Thermostat Now available in the UK

9th April 201410th April 2014 John Large Leave a comment

I remember seeing Nest a while ago when Kevin Rose tweeted & talked about it. I’m a real geek when it comes to eco technology & energy saving so i was very excited to finally get hold of Nest.

I finally found it in John Lewis in Liverpool. I had completely forgot that it had been released due to moving house but I’m glad I spotted it.

Nest is a smart thermostat which has learning capabilities & the ability to control it from an Android or iOS app.

The blurb for nest is as follows :- Read More....

A quick update

2nd April 201421st November 2014 John Large 3 Comments

Just thought I would write a quick update on here. It’s one of those therapeutic things, better to write things down to get things out of your mind.

We are temporarily staying with family. For independent self employed people this is very hard. We are grateful to have a place to stay while we look for our next place to live but it’s very difficult going from having all of your own space to being in someone else’s. At least it’s only a temporary setup until we find the perfect apartment. Read More....

We managed to fit our entire life into two van loads

Downsizing – biggest step complete

27th March 201421st November 2014 John Large Leave a comment

Well we have now moved out of our massive house. We are looking for a much smaller place so in the mean time we are staying with family & the few belongings we decided to keep are now packed neatly away in storage. We did so many trips to the charity shop in a van, not to mention all the things we sold on eBay including furniture and clothing.

The aim was to get all of our belongings into one short wheelbase transit. We managed to get it down to two loads in said transit but we still have some things to sell so the goal in achievable. Read More....

Downsizing – picking up pace.

26th February 201421st November 2014 John Large Leave a comment

Well things are starting to move quite quickly. We have been without a car now for almost a month and we have got on just fine. We are renting a car this weekend to do some days out & visit Manchester to get some business done. We ended up getting a really good deal and it was £60 for 4 days for a super economical small car.

The biggest thing is the house listing. After a month of waiting we finally got the house on the market & a sign up outside. Less than 24 hours later we have viewings lined up & hopefully things will move quickly. I’m excited to move on & start the next chapter of life. I know that won’t be in St Helens anymore & I’ve made my peace with that. The fact is apart from my good friends & a few family members I have very little tying me to this place now & it’s time to get back out there and start living again. Paying for this quasi-mansion has almost killed us. We have all this space & it’s lucky because once it’s all paid for each month there is very little money left over so we are trapped in it. Read More....

Downsizing Challenge – Bumps in the road but luckily no car

6th February 201421st November 2014 John Large 3 Comments

So we are still in the process of simplifying our lives. As you can tell by the blog, this has been put off for a while due to various family issues & our need to drive to/from Scotland every few weeks. We are slowly getting back on track but the downsizing is going to have to take a different shape.

As an update, we have now spoken to our landlord & are waiting on them finding a suitable tenant for the property. We are going to end the lease on this property & stay with family until everything calms down allowing us to move on. The plan for the future is still the same but due to the family problems we are going to be putting all of our things into storage for a while. Our storage is already sorted and we have committed to a 150sq/ft room. That’s pretty small when you consider we are in a 4 bedroom house with garage. Read More....

Downsizing update – One room empty

6th October 20136th October 2013 John Large Leave a comment

I finally managed to clear a whole room. The room happens to be a spare bedroom we where using as a store room/guest room. After a lot of selling & donating the contents of the room have been sorted & downsized considerably. Bed has gone as has associated bedding. Furniture has been sold and a lot of the stuff we where storing has been sold off. Feels great. The room is now clean & closed off.

Most of the stuff we had stored in this room where things that people had bought for us which we didn’t really want but felt obliged to keep. These have now been donated to charity. This means that someone will get some joy out of them rather than us storing them & our charity of choice makes some cash in the process. Furthermore we have reduced the size of home we need by one whole bedroom. Read More....

Still downsizing

3rd October 20133rd October 2013 John Large Leave a comment

Our downsizing challenge is still going on. But things are much harder than we first thought.

Firstly it seems like many people are doing something similar. It’s so hard to sell anything on eBay now and their fees are beyond ridiculous nowadays. People are just less willing to spend. We have sold quite a few things such as the Nintendo wii and other electronics, not to mention furniture, but they have sold for much less than expected. We do feel a lot lighter already so every cloud I guess. Read More....

Downsizing day 19 – wheels in motion

19th September 201319th September 2013 John Large Leave a comment

It’s been 10 days since my last entry on here. Unfortunately work and life has taken over and I didn’t have time to update the blog. However I’m still making a lot of progress.

Last week we sorted out our dressing room (a spare bedroom where we have clothes rails and my wife has her makeup). It’s not as posh as it sounds. We both went through our clothes racks. On our first pass over the racks we tried to look at everything we like and didn’t like or wear anymore. On the second pass we took out a couple of items to give to charity. Mostly older stuff and clothes we hadn’t worn for ages. We did a third and forth pass each time removing things we could part with. Doing this allowed us both to cut our collection of clothes in half. We donated them all to charity and rather than feeling sad about giving up some clothes, we are overjoyed at how easy it is to see what we have. Read More....

Downsizing day 7 – 1 week in

9th September 20139th September 2013 John Large 1 Comment

Well I’m now a week in to the downsizing challenge and its been a very hard week indeed. Sorting through your stuff is so tiring. So far we have done a trip to the rubbish tip with a car full of stuff, including an old mattress from our gust bedroom and associated old bedding (it was all beyond reusing) and lots of boxes & packaging we have been keeping for products. We also took hundreds of magazines for recycling along with some old kitchen things.

It’s funny how we attach value to things even though they are no longer of use to us. A kind of sentimentality to a magazine you once enjoyed & some misplaced fantasy that you will read it again. Some of the magazines I’ve had since I was 11 years old, mostly old car magazines and the sentimental connection to them is unreal. The truth is I’ve never read them in 19 years, I’ve just carted them about. They weigh about 100Kg and take up 4 under bed boxes. They have to go. Read More....

Downsizing Challenge – Stuff for sale

4th September 20134th September 2013 John Large Leave a comment

Below are the things that I’m selling off as part of the downsizing challenge. If you are interested in anything drop me an email jodsclass@gmail.com

1. Nintendo Wii + loads of extras – Softmodded consoles plays backups & homebrew

Nintendo Wii With Wii Sports, wii Sports resort and Wii motion plus controller, Mario Kart with steering wheel, wii fit plus & balance board, console in white with nunchuk, standard controller and arcade controller. All boxed. Very good condition. Looking for £100 for the lot, or a near offer. Read More....

Downsizing challenge day 2 – little background

3rd September 20133rd September 2013 John Large Leave a comment

I Thought I should give you a little background into my life & to try and convince you this isn’t a privileged middle class reaction to a lifestyle.

When I was younger I had no money at all. My dad & I lived with my grandmother and we all pitched in as a family. We had one part time wage in the household. We where lucky in the fact that my grandmothers mortgage was paid off in full when my grandad died. So we all lived in a house on one part time wage. To say we had little money is an understatement but we managed and nobody would have been the wiser to our money problems. Read More....