I've installed and played with an Outlook plug-in called Xobni (Inbox backwards). It does stats on your email sending and receiving habits, and it can search for stuff in your inbox in a few new ways.

I've not really used it, not ever. When I installed it, it could not add much value, as it has not yet analysed my inbox. And then I minimised it until I looked at it today again (before cleaning out my Microsoft inbox for good).

And I got this funny graph:

Why is it funny? Because the number of emails received is... (wait for it...) off the scale :) (I've been on holiday during the quiet week, before anyone asks!)

If you used my Microsoft email address to talk to me in the past, now is a good time to update your filofax or rolodex or contacts: The best email address to reach me, is my name@surname.co.uk.

More later...

I've recently bought a VW Touran, and it's a great car. It's got the needed occasional 7 seats, it is nice and punchy and I got it for a great deal (thanks to autoebid)... but it's <yawn> sooo boring. It's not even a bit exotic or exciting or exhilarating. I've got the DSG gearbox, which does exactly what it says on the tin, but even that is not really worth writing home about IMHO.

So - the one creature comfort that I did decide to splash out on, was something that would allow me to plug in my MP3 player - a Zune in my case. VW does a £25 Aux-in plug, but only if you have a custom factory order, which I could not wait for. So, I've considered several options, but discounted buying a new radio just for this, I did not find a goof FM-transmitter that would deliver me good sound quality and in the end, I opted for XCarLink. The UK site is http://www.xcarlink.co.uk, but it seems like the majority of these gadgets are being sold through eBay.

The £75 XCarlink from China (version 6) that I bought, is working very nicely. It connects to the rear of the RCD600 radio in the Touran, and pretends to be a CD changer. The CDR600 is quiet happy having it's own built-in CD changer and this external one, allowing you to switch between the two by just pressing "CD" a second time.

From the back of the radio, a cable runs to a fag-pack size box, with three connectors on the other side. 1) mini jack for stereo - which I use most of the time

2) USB plug that you can use for a) charging and b) playing MP3/WMA files. (You can store up to 99 files in six directories (CD01 to CD06), and then navigate through these as if they are CDs) This is a *very* nice feature, but is not completely noiseless. It's better than tape or an FM transmitter solution, but still a bit music-down-a-pipe-like.

3) A din plug that connects to the last bit of the XCarLink... a Bluetooth dongle and microphone. This allows you to (at least theoretically) a) make phone calls through the radio with a bluetooth connected phone, b) stream stereo music to the XCarLink via Bluetooth. (I've had this working with an old phone, but not yet with my Samsung i780... (BTW - this bluetooth capability is unique to version 6 - older versions of the XCarLink does not have this.)

I really enjoy having full access to my Zune's content in the car, and this will be a great companion for the road on the coming holiday!

If you are planning of forking out more than £20 on connecting your iPod (XCarLink does an iPod version too) or MP3 player to your VW (and they offer other models too, supporting other manufacturers), then this is a good option IMHO.

Note on installation: The early non-UK version I bought off eBay, only had Chinese information with it - and I had no guidance to do it. It's entirely possible, but don't expect a good detailed manual with it. It took me some time to get behind the covers of the dash board on my VW, but the rest was quiet easy. The last glitch was in connecting the XCarLink to the VW radio. The plug seemed to fit perfectly, but the connector block housing the pins inside the plug, was loose, and meant that even after plugging it in, it was not plugged in. The solution was to push in the cable (as opposed to the plug), and that ensured that the connectors also made contact.

I'll buy/use this again if I had similar needs.

As someone working in the software industry, it's weird that I'm not willing to spend money on software... or at least I think 100 times before doing so.

So - many moons ago I bought TomTom 3, then later 5 and later upgraded to 5.21.

Today, I've managed to get my shiny new Samsung i780 phone working lovely with TomTom without the need to spend any money. (No - I don't have any Scottish blood - I think :))

I think I should attribute this to Gavin Fabiani-Laymond - thanks!

In essence - download GPSProxy from SourceForge.net, install and configure (as per this blog above), and that's it!

I'm really impressed with the TomTom experience on this i780. It's accurate, find a fix quickly, works well on the screen resolution and... well... works!