Microsoft have started to roll out a bunch of apps for Xbox but, depending where you're located on this great planet of ours, you might not see many - or any at all. Or, what you want isn't available in your country.

That sucks. Doesn't it? Well, no fear - many of these apps will work fine with just a little 'hack'. Don't worry though, this hack is for the faint-hearted!

Here's what to do:

1. Go to the Xbox site on your computer or tablet
2. Change the country at the bottom of the page to the country you want apps from
3. Make a new Xbox Live account with a different email address to your regular Xbox Live account (make sure it's a .com email and not, say, a .co.uk if you're pretending to be in the US)
4. On your Xbox, sign out
5. Now choose to download profile
6. Enter the email address and password you chose for this new account
7. Wait a minute or so
8. Job's done!

Now when you go into the apps marketplace you'll be presented with apps from whichever country you've chosen. Almost all will download without an issue to your Xbox, although some won't work at all - or will, but with some complicated trickery.

US apps that work in the UK without any advanced trickery:

1. iHeartRadio
2. Syfy
3. TMZ
4. Today

 

US apps that probably work in the UK albeit only with advanced trickery:

1. Hulu Plus
2. VUDU

The advanced trickery involves using a VPN/proxy to fool the apps into thinking you're in another country. It's the kinda trickery business people use to be able to watch EastEnders on iPlayer whilst out in Hong Kong or whatever. It's a bit beyond my skill set, sadly.

I tried the two Aussie-only apps with less success. By less I mean no. Australia's equivalent of iPlayer and Sky load successfully but video won't work without tricking your Xbox into thinking it's down under. Plus you need a subscription to the latter anyway.

Sorry about the rubbishness of the pictures, cameraphone pointed at what a low-res projector outputs is less than ideal, I know!

Yesterday I picked up The Big Book of Hello Kitty for a bargalicious £3.20 at TK Maxx.

This knowledgable tome promises to help me find my fashion, decorate my space, cook up some treats and look after my skin.  Although, what really sold me was the lure of finding all out about 'being confident, organised and happy'.

Three things I'm in dire need of knowing.  Who needs Tony Robbins, huh?

Without further ado, here's Hello Kitty's advice on DJing:

And no, this book isn't really for me - it's an ironic birthday gift for a friend who can read it to her daughters in a non-ironic way.

Although I'm not sure Burlesque Hello Kitty is an entirely suitable role model for impressionable young ladies...

I would love to hear from anyone who's ever been helped by Hello Kitty.  Please leave your comments below.

Ah Klout, you're such utter bollocks...

...but I love you all the same.

One of Twitter's top trending terms as I type this is 'JUSTIN HITS 14 MILLION FOLLOWERS'.

I decided to make light of such a sad and depressing piece of news by making a Chris Brown joke out of it.  For those of you who don't know, he's that guy who became famous not for his own, rather mediocre, talent but for beatting to a pulp his much more talented girlfriend, Rihanna.  He's also rather chummy with the clean cut and far more popular, Justin Bieber these days - hence the following...

JUSTIN HITS 14 MILLION FOLLOWERS is trending. That Chris Brown has set him a bad example.

I know, hardly the funniest joke ever - but that's not the point in regards to this post.  Look what happened after I tweeted it:

First of all, I really have no desire to see the Biebster naked.  Not even out of curiosity.  I was curious though, about something else.  Where did the link lead, how many hits did it get and who was responsible?

Thanks to the spammer using bit.ly I was able to find out where the link pointed to without adding to their page hits or risking some nasties from a possibly malware infested site.

The surprising thing is that they only managed to get 38 hits in an hour of flooding Twitter with the link from countless fake accounts.  I guess people aren't as stupid as I thought and/or no one's interested in seeing Bieber's junk.

The interesting thing is this link has received over one thousand hits since Monday.  I imagine that's because of some other bollocks, not Justin Bieber's - who, judging by the tone of his voice, probably doens't have any.

The link directs to a post on buzzdots.com - a WHOIS didn't help me find out who's behind it, sadly.  However, thanks to Google's page preview thingy-majig I was able to see it was just some shitty blog that really didn't warrant any further attention.

What have I learnt from this?

Well, it's reinforced the belief that spamming and dishonesty work rather well online.  And that Justin Bieber naked isn't much of a draw for anyone.

Apparently the picture below is (or was) an internet sensation.  As per usual this is the first I've heard.  This is just one example of the BBC screwing up live subtitles and, until now, complaints about it have been falling on deaf ears.

It's not just the BBC that has this problem as anyone who's seen Sky News in a pub can attest.

If anyone's got any more clangers, please share!

So, you like spewing your thoughts out on the interwebz but don't like the thought of anyone reading them?  Good.  Then read on...

My old VOX blog, as crappy as it often was, somehow managed to get quite a lot of traffic.  Sometimes this had a lot to do with keyword shenanigans - sometimes a little, or not at all.  Reading back some of my locally stored blog posts (VOX is no more) I kinda wish that no one had read some of them.  Thankfully I need not worry anymore.

Without further ado (ha ha, I said 'do'!) here's my failproof quick-and-easy guide to having no one read the ill thought out shit you share on the 'twebs...

• Use Posterous

Simple, eh?  Hope you followed it to the word.  If you're having any trouble let me know and I'll talk you through the steps step by step.

Why it works...

For some reason Google has trouble finding anything I post on Posterous.  No matter what I post and what tags I use.  Some clever clogs will know the answer to this, I'm sure.  Other clever clogs will suggest using something other than Posterous if one wishes to actually get eyeballs on one's blogs.  I like using Posterous though, so I'll just keep on talking to myself.

Want to leverage the power of people and Google's Chrome to make yourself appear more influential than you really are?  Good, then read on...

There's a growing list of companies and individuals who deem your worthiness based on what Klout spout about you.  What's Klout?  It's some utter bollocks social media metric doodad, that's what.

So we need to get your Klout score up, don't we?  The higher the better.  There's many ways to do this but I believe this is the best.  Just follow these simple steps and you'll be a better human being in no time...

• Get the Klout plug-in for Chrome
• Install it (duh!)
• Now go to Twitter.com
• If it's installed properly you'll see Klout scores next to the names of those you follow (I'd show you an example picture but I have no desire or need to install the plug-in
• Unfollow anyone with a dismally low score
• Start engaging those with high scores (ask them questions, stroke their egos, RT them and list them as a Follow Friday)
• Find other accounts with high Klout scores that appear likely to appreciate the type of engagement I mention in the last bulletpoint

There you go, you're now a much better human being.  No need to thank me.  Well, not unless you have a high Klout score and you do so on Twitter.

So, you're new to Twitter (or you've been on it a while and want to follow a whole load more interesting folk) but the powers that be won't allow you to follow any more?

Fear not!  There's a way around this limit if you don't mind being a little naughty.

Okay rascals, this is what you do:

• Follow the followers of a blatently spammy account
• Unfollow them after they follow you
• Repeat as needed

How this works and why:

• Accounts that follow an obviously spammy Twitter account are more than likely set to auto-follow anyone who follows them
• If these accounts don't mind shit filling up their Twitter stream, they won't mind whatever it is you post
• Many of these accounts are set to auto-follow but aren't set to auto-unfollow (or, at least, not straight away)
• Your follower count will go up and when it does Twitter allows you to follow more people

By choosing an iffy account - I thoroughly recommend using http://twitter.com/#!/stoneteam1 - you limit annoying real people on Twitter.  I for one hate Twitter follow spam and I know I'm far from alone on this.

This process does work and I've an experimental account that backs this up.  I scarily managed to get 10,000 followers in just a few weeks this way.  Well, some of it was also from my rather bawdy tweets on said account - but I digress.

Your Android is a lot like a vampire - it looks real cool but it sucks the life out of it's power source.

I can't help you if you have a vampire problem, but I may be able to help you if you have a thirsty Android.

So, bullet points at the ready, here goes:

• Turn the brightness down (even if it's just by a few percent, it's one of the biggest killers)
• Turn off Bluetooth if you have no need for it
• Switch to 2G only if you're not doing much that requires an internet connection
• Turn Wi-Fi on if you're within range of Wi-Fi you can use
• Turn Wi-Fi off if you're not
• If listening to music, buy headphones with better sound insulation - you'll need less volume to hear.  Less volume means more battery life
• Don't use a task killing app to kill running apps (chances are the apps will just reload - which uses more juice)
• Instead, see what's always running that you don't use and uninstall it.
• And, finally, if you're on a train or Tube or whatever, and you know there's hardly any reception the entire journey, switch to Airplane mode until you reach your destination.

These work a treat on both my ZTE Blade and my Dell Streak.  Of course, most of these tips will work with any phone even one of those iThingies.

If anyone wants me to elaborate further on any of these points or have found this post useful, please let me know.

Why?

• It got pretty good reviews when it was priced at £400, at launch, just two months ago
• It was £311 less than that last week!
• There is no other tablet with this spec for anywhere near this price
• 90% of my laptop use is web browsing and email, not apps/programs
• My laptop's too clunky for sofa/kitchen/bed use (plus the battery is fubar)
• My aging netbook's too rubbish to be of any use for anything
• It has Flash!

The reason I sold all my Nokia/Symbian phones and vowed never to buy one again was down to lack of support - from Nokia themselves and from third parties.  The best hardware available is worth jack if there's nothing to make use of it.  So it may seem a little odd that I'd go and buy a discontinued tablet, with barely any apps for it, from the manufacturer who ditched it just months after launch.

Well, the browser on the TouchPad works almost as well as that found on my laptop.  Webpages look, and work, mostly as intended.  No crazy reformating and no giant blank squares where the Flash should be as it has, for better or worse (I feel better...) Flash!  And, with such a good browser, are apps really needed?  Many are little more than a website within an app anyway.

What's not to like?

• Poorer support for UK owners than US
• No Kindle app in UK (along with a bunch of other key apps we get teased with when we enter the HP App Catalog)
• HP App Catalog frequently hangs or fails to load
• It can get bogged down with too many 'cards' (apps/windows) running at the same time
• The speakers are meant to be shit hot, Beats by Dre, ones.  They're nothing special
• It won't connect to a Bluetooth phone that isn't a HP/Palm one
• No GPS
• No back camera
• No Google apps other than YouTube
• Although Flash works great in most cases it is troublesome on occasion - plus it's impossible to use sites like Wikimapia because you can't scroll!
• It's bloody slow out of the box (but that's remedied by following these instructions)

On a personal note, I suffer a lot of stomach and back pain - trying to get comfy with a laptop when pillowed-up is easier said than done.  The TouchPad is a hell of a lot lighter, doesn't need ventilation, doesn't cook my lap and can be picked up and put down with ease.  I can't afford an iPad (or half-decent Android tablet) at even half the price - so this will do me fine.