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RipIt is an easy-to-use DVD ripping tool for Macs.  It rips DVDs onto your hard drive (whether internal or external) into a format that can be read by the DVD player app just like any other DVD, which means it preserves the whole DVD structure, including menus, chapters, and bonus material.  (I’ve yet to try it out for Easter Eggs, though.)    At only $18.99 it’s an absolute bargain.

When I first embarked on The Great DVD Project (making hard drive backups of the family’s DVD collection and converting them to Apple TV format), I used the setup you’ll see mentioned in a lot of blogs: Mac The Ripper (MTR) to rip the DVD to hard disk then Handbrake to convert MTR’s output into Apple TV format.

This served me adequately for a while, although I found MTR’s interface somewhat inscrutable at times, until I came across a few DVDs with copy protection that couldn’t be read by MTR. Without wishing to get into a debate about copy protection’s rights and wrongs, I spent a fruitless few hours on various sites and a scary-looking MTR forum, but nothing I tried could get MTR to work on these DVDs.

That’s when I stumbled across RipIt. It’s a simple app to use – once installed, you insert the DVD, ask RipIt to do its stuff, and you end up with a DVD image that can be played just like any other DVD. RipIt will even look up the DVD’s name in an online catalogue for you so you end up with a filename that’s vaguely intelligible (results are variable, though).

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Croydon

Kidspace is a big indoor play area, with plenty of variety of things to do, such as a ball area (not a ball pit), mini-golf, (very slow) go karts, trampolines and the like.

Let me qualify this review upfront by saying that if you come here when the older kids are at school, this place would probably get four stars. It’s definitely one of the better play areas out there, in terms of equipment, albeit a lot more expensive.

Kidspace seems ill-equipped to cope with any decent number of visitors, however. On our last visit there, the queue just to place an order for food was massive, and the wait actually to receive the food was ridiculous. Anyone who’s got a young child knows that it’s a nightmare keeping them waiting for food, and there were a lot of stressed out parents that lunchtime. It’s a shame, because the food isn’t all that bad, but it’s unacceptable to be waiting nearly an hour for it.

I wonder if they’re very short-staffed here because the receptionist certainly shouldn’t have been working. She seemed to be suffering from a throat infection that she helpfully tried to share with everyone by coughing and spluttering over the parents and children. Lovely Christmas present, that.

There doesn’t seem to be anyone around to even keep an occasional eye on events in the play area. The under-5s area was invaded on several occasions by older kids, who proceeded to run amok and hurt several of the younger children. The system on the gate to the under-5s area, where the button is placed high up supposedly so that only parents can get to it, is about as useful as a chocolate teapot, since the gate is opened so often it might as well not be there.

It’s a shame, because Kidspace has the potential to be a really great place to bring the kids, but you have to really pick and choose your visits and hope that it’s not too busy.
Check out my review of a href=”http://www.qype.co.uk/place/390178-Kidspace-Croydon”Kidspace/a – I am a href=”http://www.qype.co.uk/people/logorrhoea”logorrhoea/a – on a href=”http://www.qype.co.uk/”Qype/a

Croydon

Flippin’ huge warehouse of cash & carry stuff that carries an impressively wide range of goods, with varying discounts on the prices you would see on the high street (or even online). You need to sign up (and pay) to be a member to shop here – you qualify for membership if you run or manage a business, or if you work in a certain profession, e.g. bean-counting.

Check out the Costco website to see the full list of types of stuff they sell, but suffice to say you could drive up here and leave your car to get its tyres changed, then go inside to get your photos developed while you take your massive trolley round the store, filling it with a MacBook Pro, an electronic piano, a vacuum cleaner, a platter of sushi, and a rump of lamb. If the car’s not quite done, sit down and get yourself a pizza or pie at the in-store cafe.

While the variety of stuff available is impressive, the range on offer can be limited, so don’t expect to find absolutely everything here. For example, there were only a couple of Wii games on offer during my visit – Mario Kart and Guitar Hero World Tour.

Probably the best discounts on offer are in the fresh meat department. The beef and lamb are British, although Costco could probably do more to provide more information on the provenance of the meat, since the initial assumption is that cheap meat can only have come from badly treated livestock.
Check out my review of Costco – I am logorrhoea – on Qype

Redhill – Beauty & Wellness – Hairdressers

You can get a decent haircut here for a bargainous £8.95, which would be enough to earn 5 stars in itself, but you also get decent conversation from a barber who manages more than the usual ‘what are you doing this weekend’ and ‘did you see the football’ clichés.

I’ve defected here from The Complete Barber Shop near Redhill station because the last couple of times I’ve been there, the haircut’s been perfunctory and the barber seemingly so disinterested that he hasn’t even bothered getting the mirror out so I can see how he’s cut the back.
Check out my review of Clippers – I am logorrhoea – on Qype

London

You should expect low standards from an ‘all you can eat’ buffet (you are putting quantity over quality, after all), but this failed to meet even my extremely low expectations.

Prawn crackers were chewy (how on earth?!), the veg completely overstewed, and the pork spare ribs were more like sparse ribs, devoid of all but the most miniscule amount of meat, which was virtually incinerated anyway.

Now, you could say that I shouldn’t expect any better, but the quality of the cooking here doesn’t help the ingredients. Just because the ingredients are cheap doesn’t mean you can’t cook them properly.

The final insult is the £1 ‘optional’ service charge stuck on the bill. Yep, a service charge for a ‘help yourself’ buffet? Beyond cheeky.
Check out my review of China China Restaurant – I am logorrhoea – on Qype