A standard office suite. It seems to have the same functions as all the other suites out there. I quite like the interface - it's cleaner than some others I've seen. On the permissions question, the description in Google Play has a proper explanation of them; each one is linked to a genuine feature, so I don't think there's anything sinister going on.

Now, I haven't seen the first two movies, so I can't say if this is better or worse than them, but I found it a perfectly pleasant family film, and my 9 year old chuckled through it.

Greg Heffley is the Wimpy Kid of the title, with a pretty ordinary suburban American family - annoying younger brother, awkward older brother, a somewhat earnest mother, and a put-upon father. Dog Days moves on from the school setting of the first books and reaches the most exciting point of the school year: summer holidays. Greg has only 2 targets for this summer - spend time with pretty school friend Holly, and play a ridiculous amount of video games. At the same time, if he can manage it.

Unfortunately for Greg, people have other ideas. His mum wants him to read proper books, improve his mind, and bond with his dad. His dad wants him to get outside, play some sports, and get a job. His older brother wants to impress Holly's older sister. His much younger brother wants his blankie back. And so on.
On the plus side, Greg's best friend Rowley can get him in to a swanky country club where they can swim and order free food.

The plot gets pretty complicated, as Greg pretends to have a job to trick his dad, pretends to like tennis to impress Holly, gets blackmailed by his brother, goes camping with his dad, gets an oversized dog, upsets Rowley, and so on. You could criticise the story for being a bit of a mess, but it actually comes together quite well, focusing on Greg's relationships with various people in amongst the crazy plots. There's a fair few funny moments - as an adult, I cracked some laughs, and it will certainly get kids giggling happily.

I liked the cast - the child actors are good, and Steve Zahn as the world-weary dad is an excellent comic actor. Mind you, Wimpy Kid actor Zachary Gordon (now aged 14) looks like he's in serious danger of a growth spurt, and might struggle to pass as 12 if they want to make any more films.

The movie adapts some of the signature styles of the books, with the stick figure artwork being used to introduce the characters, and a diary-style narration at times. This lends a certain style to the film and helps frame the action.

My definition of a decent family film is one that the kids enjoy while the adults don't feel like they're being tortured with stupid jokes. Dog Days easily surpasses that standard - good for kids, and with some moments that adults will enjoy. The theme of Greg's relationship with his dad was particularly well-played, and overall it was a good family film.

This is a very slim feeling case that snaps neatly around the One S. It's just thick enough that it keeps the camera lens off the table when you put it down, but not so thick that you really notice it too much. It doesn't fully cover the curves at the top and bottom, so if you dropped the phone in just the wrong way you mght be able to damage something, but I reckon that would be a fairly freak occurence. It has cut-outs in the right places, and a matt surface that isn't slippy in your hand.
Only thing to mention is that it's not so simple to take off - I can just about do it one handed, but it's a bit awkward - so if you need to put your phone into a car holder on a regular basis then it coul get a bit annoying.

Takes a single 3.5mm headphone socket and splits it into separate headphone and microphone sockets. I use it to take a good quality PC headset with separate audio and mic cables, and plug it into a mobile phone as a single headset, letting me use Skype while wandering around the room with the mobile in my pocket, rather than being tethered to the PC. It does this job well.

Person of Interest is an interesting and watchable show that only needs some more reliable writing to be a must-watch.

The premise of Person of Interest is a paranoid's worst nightmare: The government is watching you. Every CCTV camera, every phone call and text, every email, every record about you is fed into a machine that knows what you're going to do before you even do it. The machine was built by Harold Finch (Michael Emerson from Lost) to predict when terrorists would attack, and it works, brilliantly. But before he handed it over to the US government he discovered it was also predicting crimes against ordinary people before they even happened. The government didn't care, so he built a backdoor that would feed him the social security numbers of these ordinary people. He doesn't know what will happen to them, or if they will be the victim or the criminal, but when a number comes out he knows it's just a matter of time before something violent happens.

This intriguing premise turns the usual detective show on it's head: the characters are preventing crimes, not solving them, and they need to work out what people are going to do, not whodunit.
Finch therefore needs someone to be his go-to man, to do the leg work and finally to step into violent situations to save the innocent. He recruits John Reese, an ex-CIA operative who has eneded up hiding out on the street after something unspecified and bad happened to him. Charismatically played by Jim Cavaziel, he quickly tidies up and stalks the streets in a sharp suit concealing some deadly weapon. He could be considered something of a Batman figure, swooping in to save someone with sudden violence and an enigmatic one-liner.

The Batman comparison is also appropriate as the concept came from author and screenwriter Jonathan Nolan (brother of The Dark Knight director Chris Nolan), and J.J.Abrams. The idea quickly grips you, and the show gradually moves on from "investigate the possible victim of the week" to weaving a longer-term story as characters return, and the backgrounds of Finch and Reese are slowly revealed. Story lines include Reese being investigated by a dedicated and honest detective, Joss Carter, and running into a set of thoroughly corrupt police officers. There's also a mob-war brewing in New York, the FBI investigating Reese, CIA killers shooting at Reese, not to mention various people on the trail of Finch and his machine.

The interplay between Reese and Finch is excellent, with the two actors crackling off each other, and the rest of the cast hold up well. Each episode is interesting, although sometimes the twists can be seen coming, such as when they think someone is a potential victim and they turn out to be the criminal. I particularly liked an episode where the number is that of an abandoned baby, and another where the numbers identify four totally unconnected people.

The main problem with the show is that some episodes have great concepts which never quite get completed properly. It feels like the main team coming up with ideas are firing on all cylinders, but some of the individual episode writers can't follow through. These aren't bad episodes, but they leave you feeling like an excellent episode has slumped to merely good. This probably only affects about a third of the season, and even then the episodes are perfectly watchable. I am eagerly looking forward to a second season, because this show can only get better.

Awake is a high-quality, high-concept US TV series with an audacious premise. LAPD detective Michael Britten has lost a member of his family in a car accident. He goes through his day with his wife, Hannah, trying to cope with the loss of their son, Rex. When Michael sleeps, he is instantly awake again. Now he is a widower and single father, trying to help the now-living Rex cope with the tragic loss of Hannah in the accident. Intrigued? You should be.

On one level Awake is a standard TV detective drama, except that Michael is in two realities, with different partners investigating different crimes. And then clues in one crime start appearing in the other reality...
One another level, Awake is a psychological drama, with Michael sparring with 2 different psychologists who are both trying to persuade him the other reality is a dream.
But finally, Awake is a personal drama, with Michael played brilliantly by veteran British actor Jason Isaacs as a man coping with loss. The quality of the supporting cast is excellent, and the production values are high.

The 13 episodes initially follow a familiar pattern, with Michael juggling two cases which somehow resonate with each other, while dealing with his personal issues. His sessions with the two psychologists are an excellent device to bring forward his inner turmoil. However, as the series progresses a wider plot develops, and Michael's ability to cope fluctuates wildly.
There's a brilliant subplot involving Rex, which I won't spoil, but the writers bring information from the two realities together in a I-didn't-see-THAT-coming moment.

If the idea behind Awake has a flaw, then it's probably the same one that shows like X-files or Lost have: once the central mystery is answered, where will they go from there? It's therefore inevitable that the series finishes with a more-questions-than-answers situation, and downright tragic that its US TV network have decided not to make a second season.

For me, Awake was a stand-out show this year, not least because Jason Isaacs is a badly underrated actor. I doubt the show could have pulled off this premise without someone of his ability to make you believe in the situation. Awake is a classy show of the sort that needs to be made more often.

Bought this for a 4 year old niece. She spent the entire day carrying it around, so I guess she liked it. Seems decent quality. There's a catch on the side that is a bit fiddly for a younger child.

Bob Howard has got the True Religion: he knows there are horrors from beyond that don't believe in any of our holy books and he needs to stop them. So when a TV evangelist who seems to have genuine holy powers appears, Bob has to find out what is going on

The Apocalypse Codex is the fourth instalment in The Laundry Files series, and you'd be well advised to start by reading The Atrocity Archives (The Laundry Files). Stross lays out the background and gets readers up to speed with his usual dry wit, and a new reader will probably get along ok, but there are frequent references to previous books.

For anyone who hasn't read the previous instalments in this excellent series: there are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know, but the computing revolution has made it all too easy to Find Them Out, with the result that Lovecraftian horrors can be summoned from the vasty depths of the Mandelbrot set with the right iPhone app. The Laundry is the British secret occult service, saving the UK from itself, but being a civil service department its agents need to succeed despite poor intel, outdated equipment, and the need to submit expense claims in triplicate The series has a strong vein of dry humour, usually from the narration of protagonist Bob Howard: civil service IT guy, reluctant spy, and computational demonologist.

Previous books have drawn inspiration from classic spy writers, and so The Apocalypse Codex features Persephone Hazard, a loving tribute to Modesty Blaise, the 1960s answer to James Bond. She is recast here as a freelancing agent (not to mention witch), more or less loyal to The Laundry's aims, called in for some plausible deniability when dealing with a serious problem: Pastor Raymond Schiller, an American religious evangelist, has some unusual powers and appears to have got too close to the Prime Minister. He needs to be checked out. So off she heads to the states, with her utterly loyal sidekick Jonny McTavish, and her new "liaison officer" Bob Howard in tow.

Hazard is an excellent character: tough, ambiguous, slowly revealing her motivations to the reader while delivering some top-notch secret agent action. It's a good job too, because she takes equal billing with Bob in this book, while Jonny gets some good scenes too.

The main event in the series is going to be Case Nightmare Green, an imminent occult apocalypse. The series has been slowly hinting at this, and it is clear that the latter half of the series will see things getting very grim indeed. In some ways, The Apocalypse Codex seems like Stross is getting the series prepped for the big event. The plot is tighter than some of the other Laundry novels, rattling along at a good pace with minimal digressions, but it doesn't move the series along as much as The Fuller Memorandum (The Laundry Files) did. The US setting means more about the enigmatic Black Chamber, and elements from previous novels return in very worrying ways.

The Laundry Files is one of my favourite series at the moment, not least because Stross is an excellent writer. The combination of well-drawn characters and a thumping plotline is compelling. The Apocalypse Codex is required reading if you liked the previous books. If you haven't read the previous books, go get them quick.

The Avengers brings together a host of superheroes in an action-packed movie with sparkling dialogue, great performances, and a rollicking plot.

Superhero franchises are tricky things at the best of times: all too often they get the tone horribly wrong, or the sequels drop the ball, or they annoy audiences by rebooting the story yet again. The Avengers had a real mountain to climb: it acts as a sequel to Iron Man 1 & 2, Thor, and Captain America, while rebooting The Hulk, and it somehow has to cram all of these into a single film.

Ever since Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson, wearing a mean eyepatch and a meaner expression) stepped out of the shadows in the post-credits scene in Iron Man, and spoke to Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) about The Avengers Initiative, it has been clear that Marvel had ambitions to do something special: bring together the heroes of multiple movies into one super team up. Along with Iron Man, we get Captain America (fresh from being rescued from the Arctic ice); Thor, and The Hulk. Along with 4 superheroes capable of maintaining their own franchise, they slip in Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson, revealed as a SHIELD agent in Iron Man 2), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner, briefly seen in Thor).

The plot designed to bring this high-powered group together sees the return of Loki (Tom Hiddleston), last seen falling into the abyss in Thor, now out to use a mysterious power source to bring destruction to the Earth. The film splits into 3 sections: first, Loki's threat is revealed and The Avengers need to be assembled; next, Loki sows confusion and discord as SHIELD try to track him down; finally, the climatic threat is revealed, and high-octane action fills the screen.

It is a mark of how well this movie is put together that I can't decide who the best character is. Downey Jr could easily have stolen the show as the wisecracking Iron Man, but the script makes sure he gets plenty of chances to shine, but doesn't overshadow anyone. Chris Evans, as Captain America, is a man out of his time still determined to do his duty, and quietly holds many scenes together. Chris Hemsworth gives Thor a mix of arrogance and bombast, while the surprise may be Mark Ruffalo as the new Hulk, showing the humanity of a man with a very real inner demon.
Against this super-quartet, the mundane Black Widow and Hawkeye might be overshadowed, but Whedon cleverly uses them to show SHIELD as more than just a base for superheroes.

The real star may actually be the script, with an excellent command of tone, and humour bubbling up in all the right places. The movie has blockbuster action in all the right places, as it wisely doesn't split its focus for individual character development. Instead, we get the bickering, fractious group slowly becoming a team, with some brilliant dialogue between the members, not to mention a fair few fights. As far as possible, the movie avoids formula and cuts to the heart of getting this team on the screen

Marvel have already shown in their previous movies that they are willing to hire someone with vision and let them get on with it, and with The Avengers they picked a writer/director who loves comics, knows movies, and knows how to weave character and story into entertainment magic: Joss Whedon. Never mind the big names in the credits, this pitch-perfect superhero blockbuster is Whedon's movie, with his trademark sparkling dialogue showing his touch in every scene.

The climatic extended action sequence is undoubtedly excellent, with spectacular fights and set pieces as Loki brings his mysterious new allies to the attack, but I actually think the best section of the movie comes in the middle, as Loki shows himself to be a devious enemy, and SHIELD show that they can be pretty devious too.

The Avengers is witty, entertaining and downright exciting, with a sense of energy throughout. But most of all it is a film with a sense of humanity, showing that these overblown characters are real people. Oh, and The Hulk gets to Smash. What more can you ask?

The Ployer Momo9 is a brilliant buy at the sort of prices being asked: you get an excellent little tablet for general purpose browsing, light games, music and videos.

There are a number of cheap Android tablets being produced at the moment. An increasingly popular type is using the "AllWinner A10" chip, which combines a decent quality 1.2GHz processor with a dedicated 0.4GHz graphics chip. You can spend all day trying to compare different chips and tablets to decide which one is best, so I will simply say that the innards of this tablet are more than adequate for browsing, videos, and generally running the system. Of the "AllWinner A10" tablets, this one was the best deal at the time I bought, but they are all pretty similar.

The tablet comes in a surprisingly nice-looking box, that will look impressive as a present for someone. Besides the tablet, you get a terrible little manual, and some cheap headphones, but that's pretty usual for mobile devices, plus 2 usb cables - one for plugging into your PC, and the other for letting you plug keyboards and other usb devices into your tablet. The charger arrived attached to the side of the box.

The tablet itself is plastic, but feels sturdy. It is black at the front with a fairly wide bezel around the screen, and with an attractive white back with logos. On the edge is a power button, and a rocker-style volume switch. The switches are sensibly placed and need a good push to work, so you won't be hitting them by accident. The "bottom" of the tablet when held in portrait has the various ports: power, mini USB, HDMI, 3.5mm headphone, and memory card. The memory card slot is labelled "TF card", which is an older name for MicroSD, but it works with new MicroSD cards just fine.
Overall, it's a very nice looking piece of kit for the price, although I'd definitely get a case and/or a screen protector.
When held in portrait, the "bottom" bezel has 3 physical buttons - menu, home, and back. You won't actually need these, because the tablet comes with Google's latest version of Android, code named Ice Cream Sandwich, which is designed to work with tablets without needing physical buttons.

The Android OS Ice Cream Sandwich is frankly lovely - it looks nice, works well, and has a ton of great features. It arrived installed, with no fuss, and all features working, and is easily the best thing about this tablet. It moves around no matter which way you hold the tablet, has little electronic versions of the menu buttons on the bottom bar so you can hold it in landscape (or even upside down) without worrying where the physical buttons are. It comes with a well-designed web browser with tabs, apps for email or dedicated gmail, map, calendar, movie and music player, camera app, etc. The pre-installed "Documents To Go" handles Microsoft Office files, and there's the Adobe pdf reader, You get the full android market (now named Google Play) with all the apps. I've yet to find any major apps that don't work, although big 3D games might not. I've got YouTube, BBC iPlayer, Kindle, and Skype working without fuss, for example.
For pure fluff, you can swipe left and right for homescreens as usual, there's various wallpapers including live ones (I rather like the Koi pond that ripples when you touch the screen), and some nice widgets to add.
More importantly, wifi connection and signal is easy to set up and works fine - I tested signal and download speed side-by-side with a phone and a laptop and it worked just as well.
Android, and Ice Cream Sandwich, probably isn't as easy to use straight away as iOS on the iPad, but when it comes down to it there are only about 6 menu buttons to press, so you'll get the hand of it pretty soon.

Here are some of the major features of the tablet that deserve some comment:
* 7 inch screen - I was a bit dubious about the screen size, considering 9 or 10 inches are the more popular sizes, but I've been really won over. You can read an e-book, watch a video, or browse a full-size webpage without a problem on this size screen.
* 800*480 screen resolution - the same as most mid-range smartphones. This is one of the features where you get what you pay for - tablets twice the price will probably be 1024*600. If you want to view very high resolution photos or videos, then you'll probably notice the difference, but this is more than adequate for general use.
* Capacitive touchscreen - much better than any "resistive" screen, this is the type you want on a modern tablet. It supports the usual multi-finger gestures such as pinch-to-zoom.
* Battery: I would guess you'll get 5 hours of mixed use, which is a decent amount for this type of tablet.
* 8GB internal memory - This is slightly more complicated: you get 1.15GB for apps, and 5.75GB for general storage of videos, movies and the like (The missing GB is taken by the core system). Unless you buy enormous games, you'll never fill the app storage. You can also add a Micro SD card for up to 32GB more storage. (If you order one, make sure it's microSD, not miniSD, as they are different things, and try to get speed Class 8 or 10 at least )
* A10 CPU and 512MB internal RAM - these are adequate for the needs of the tablet, although they may have problems if you try to play high-spec 3D games.
* HDMI output - I haven't tried it, but apparently you can plug it into your HDMI-enabled TV and watch movies on the big screen. If it works, it will be very cool.
* Camera - a tiny 1.3MP camera is mounted to look straight at you. This is clearly for use more as a webcam than a real camera, although you could take a few blind snaps with it if needed.
* Speaker - I was afraid this would be tinny and weak, but it is actually a lot louder than I expected, although the quality at high volume is what you'd expect - fine for a funny you-tube video or streaming radio, but not so great for quality music. Better than expected, though.

Now, here's what you don't get:
* No GPS - for location based services, maps, etc. Would be nice, but clearly GPS had to go to keep the price down.
* No bluetooth - I don't get the point of bluetooth, so this doesn't bother me.
* Mobile/3g signal - hopefully this is obvious, but in case it isn't: this tablet is wifi only (although I believe it is possible to get a 3g dongle working)

A note on the sellers: I purchased from GTR Electronics, who weren't quite the cheapest, but are a UK based company. The tablet was sent Royal Mail registered delivery and arrived speedily and in perfect condition. A lot of cheaper sellers are sending your tablet from China or Hong Kong, so expect a slower delivery, and consider the faff if you have to send it back.

Overall, this is a great little tablet for for travelling or using on the sofa, and getting a fully-working android system at this price is a no-brainer. I might buy 2!